OUR  GREATEST   BATTLE 


BOOKS  BY 

FREDERICK  PALMER 

THE  VAGABOND 

WITH  KUROKI  IN  MANCHURIA 

THE  LAST  SHOT 

MY   YEAR   OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

MY   SECOND    YEAR  OF   THE  WAR 

WITH  OUR  FACES  IN  THE  LIGHT 

AMERICA  IN  FRANCE 

OUR   GREATEST  BATTLE 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

(THE  MEUSE-ARGONNE) 


BY 
FREDERICK  PALMER 

Author  of  "The  Last  Shot,"  "America  in  France,"  etc. 


NEW  YORK 
DODD,    MEAD  AND  COMPANY 

1919 


Copyright,  1919 
By  DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY,  Inc. 


TO  THE  READER 

During  the  war  we  had  books  which  were  the 
product  of  the  spirit  of  the  hour  and  its  limitations. 
Among  these  was  my  "  America  in  France,"  which 
was  written,  while  we  were  still  expecting  the  war  to 
last  through  the  summer  of  19 19,  to  describe  the 
gathering  and  training  of  the  American  Expedition- 
ary Forces,  and  their  actions  through  the  Chateau- 
Thierry  and  Saint-Mihiel  operations.  Since  the  war 
and  the  passing  of  the  military  censorship,  we  have 
had  many  hastily  compiled  histories,  and  many 
"  inside  "  accounts  from  participants,  including  com- 
manders, both  Allied  and  enemy,  whose  special 
pleading  is,  to  one  familiar  with  events,  no  less  evi- 
dent in  their  lapses  than  in  their  tone. 

This  book,  which  continues  and  supplements 
"  America  in  France,"  is  not  in  the  class  of  the  jerry- 
built  histories  or  the  personal  narratives.  It  aims, 
as  the  result  of  special  facilities  for  information  and 
observation,  to  give  a  comprehensive  and  intelligent 
account  of  the  greatest  battle  in  which  Americans 
ever  fought,  the  Meuse-Argonne. 

In  the  formative  period  of  our  army,  I  was  the 
officer  in  charge  of  press  relations,  under  a  senior 


vi  TO  THE  READER 

officer.  I  was  never  chief  censor  of  the  A.  E.  F. :  I 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  censorship  of  the  soldiers' 
mail.  After  we  began  operations  in  the  field,  my 
long  experience  in  war  was  utilized  in  making  me  an 
observer,  who  had  the  freedom  of  our  lines  and  of 
those  of  our  Allies  in  France.  Where  the  average 
man  in  the  army  was  limited  in  his  observations  to 
his  own  unit,  I  had  the  key  to  the  different  compart- 
ments. I  saw  all  our  divisions  in  action  and  all  the 
processes  of  combat  and  organization.  It  was  grati- 
fying that  my  suggestions  sometimes  led  to  a  broader 
point  of  view  in  keeping  with  the  character  of  the 
immense  new  army  which  was  being  filled  into  the 
mold  of  the  old. 

Friends  who  have  read  the  manuscript  complain 
that  I  do  not  give  enough  of  my  own  experiences, 
or  enough  reminiscences  of  eminent  personalities; 
but  even  in  the  few  places  where  I  have  allowed  the 
personal  note  to  appear  it  has  seemed,  as  it  would  to 
anyone  who  had  been  in  my  place,  a  petty  intrusion 
upon  the  mighty  whole  of  two  million  American  sol- 
diers, who  were  to  me  the  most  interesting  personal- 
ities I  met.  The  little  that  one  pair  of  eyes  could 
see  may  supply  an  atmosphere  of  living  actuality  not 
to  be  easily  reproduced  from  bare  records  by  future 
historians,  who  will  have  at  their  service  the  increas- 
ing accumulation  of  data. 

In  the  light  of  my  observations  during  the  battle, 


TO  THE  READER  vii 

I  went  over  the  fields  after  the  armistice,  and  studied 
the  official  reports,  and  talked  with  the  men  of  our 
army  divisions.  For  reasons  that  are  now  obvious, 
the  results  do  not  read  like  the  communiques  and 
dispatches  of  the  time,  which  gave  our  public  their 
idea  of  an  action  which  could  not  be  adequately  de- 
scribed until  it  was  finished  and  the  war  was  over. 
We  had  repulses,  when  heroism  could  not  persist 
against  annihilation  by  cross-fire;  our  men  attacked 
again  and  again  before  positions  were  won;  some- 
times they  fought  harder  to  gain  a  little  knoll  or 
patch  of  woods  than  to  gain  a  mile's  depth  on  other 
occasions.  Accomplishment  must  be  judged  by  the 
character  of  the  ground  and  of  the  resistance. 

As  the  division  was  our  fighting  unit,  I  have  de- 
scribed the  part  that  each  division  took  in  the  battle. 
The  reader  who  wearies  of  details  may  skip  cer- 
tain chapters,  and  find  in  others  that  he  is  following 
the  battle  as  a  whole  in  its  conception  and  plan  and 
execution,  and  in  the  human  influences  which  were 
supreme;  but  the  very  piling  up  of  the  records  of 
skill,  pluck,  and  industry  of  division  after  division 
from  all  parts  of  the  country,  as  they  took  their  turn 
in  the  ordeal  until  they  were  expended,  is  accumu- 
lative evidence  of  what  we  wrought. 

The  soldier  who  knew  only  his  division,  his  regi- 
ment, battalion,  company,  and  platoon,  as  he  lay  in 
chill  rain  in  fox-holes,  without  a  blanket,  under  gas, 


viii  TO  THE  READER 

shells,  and  machine-gun  fire,  or  charged  across  the 
open  or  up  slippery  ascents  for  a  few  hundred  yards 
more  of  gains,  may  learn,  as  accurately  as  my  in- 
formation warrants,  in  a  freshened  sense  of  com- 
radeship, how  and  where  other  divisions  fought.  He 
may  think  that  his  division  has  not  received  a  fair 
share  of  attention  for  its  exploits.  I  agree  with  him 
that  it  has  not,  in  my  realization  of  the  limitations  of 
space  and  of  capacity  to  be  worthy  of  my  subject. 

There  are  many  disputes  between  divisions  as  the 
result  of  a  proud  and  natural  rivalry,  which  was  pos- 
sibly too  energetically  promoted  by  the  staff  in  order 
to  force  each  to  its  utmost  before  it  staggered  in  its 
tracks  from  wounds  and  exhaustion.  One  division 
might  have  done  the  pioneer  hammering  and  thrust- 
ing which  gave  a  succeeding  division  its  opportunity. 
A  daring  patrol  of  one  division  may  have  entered  a 
position  and  been  ordered  to  fall  back;  troops  of 
another  division  may  have  taken  the  same  position 
later.  There  was  nothing  so  irritating  as  having  to 
withdraw  from  hard-won  ground  because  an  adjoin- 
ing unit  could  not  keep  up  with  the  advance.  Towns 
and  villages  were  the  landmarks  on  the  map,  with 
which  communiques  and  dispatches  conjured;  but 
often  the  success  which  made  a  village  on  low  ground 
tenable  was  due  to  the  taking  of  commanding  hills 
in  the  neighborhood.  Sometimes  troops,  in  their 
eagerness  to  overcome  the  fire  on  their  front,  found 


TO  THE  READER  ix 

themselves  in  the  sector  of  an  adjoining  division,  and 
mixed  units  swept  over  a  position  at  the  same  time. 
In  cases  of  controversy  I  have  tried  to  adjust  by 
investigation  and  by  comparing  reports.  I  must 
have  made  errors,  whose  correction  I  welcome.  To 
illustrate  the  full  detail  of  each  division's  advance 
would  require  several  maps  as  large  as  a  soldier's 
blanket.  The  maps  which  I  have  used  are  intended 
to  indicate  in  a  general  way  the  movement  of  each 
division,  and  our  part  on  the  western  front  in  rela- 
tion to  our  Allies. 

There  may  be  surprise  that  I  have  not  mentioned 
the  names  of  individuals  below  the  rank  of  division 
commander,  and  that  I  have  not  identified  units 
lower  than  divisions.  The  easy  and  accepted  method 
would  have  been  to  single  out  this  and  that  man  who 
had  won  the  Medal  of  Honoror  the  Cross,  and  this 
or  that  battalion  or  company  which  had  a  theatric 
part.  Indeed,  the  author  could  have  made  his  own 
choices  in  distinction.  I  knew  the  battle  too  well;  I 
had  too  deep  a  respect  for  my  privilege  to  set  my- 
self up  in  judgment,  or  even  to  trust  to  the  judgment 
of  others.  Not  all  the  heroes  won  the  Medal  or 
the  Cross.  The  winners  had  opportunities;  their 
deeds  were  officially  observed.  How  many  men  de- 
served them  in  annihilated  charges  in  thickets  and 
ravines,  but  did  not  receive  them,  we  shall  not  know 
until  our  graves  in  France  yield  their  secrets. 


x  TO  THE  READER 

I  like  to  think  that  our  men  did  not  fight  for 
Crosses;  that  they  fought  for  their  cause  and  their 
manhood.  A  battalion  which  did  not  take  a  hill  may 
have  fought  as  bravely  as  one  which  did,  and  deserve 
no  less  credit  for  its  contribution  to  the  final  result. 
So  I  have  resisted  the  temptation  to  make  a  gallery 
of  fame,  and  set  in  its  niches  those  favored  in  the 
hazard  of  action,  when  it  was  the  heroism  and  forti- 
tude of  all  which  cannot  be  too  much  honored.  I 
have  written  of  the  "  team-play "  rather  than  the 
"  stars  " ;  of  the  whole — ^a  whole  embracing  all  that 
legion  of  Americans  at  home  or  abroad  who  were  in 
uniform  during  the  war.  If  I  have  been  discriminate 
about  regulars  and  reserves,  and  frank  about  many 
other  things,  it  is  in  no  carping  sense.  We  fought 
the  war  for  a  cause  which  requires  the  truth,  now 
that  the  war  is  over. 

I  regret  that  it  is  not  possible  for  me  to  give 
due  acknowledgment  to  the  many  officers  of  our 
army  who,  during  the  actual  campaign  and  since  their 
demobilization,  have  facilitated  the  gathering  of  my 
material.  For  the  preparation  of  the  book  I  am 
indebted  to  the  continued  assistance,  both  in  France 
and  at  home,  of  Mr.  George  Bruner  Parks. 

Frederick  Palmer. 

September,  1919. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
I 

A  Change  of  Plan        .       ,.,      t, 

PAGE 
I 

II 

Into  Line  for  Attack  .       ... 

19 

III 

New  and  Old  Divisions       .       t. 

42 

IV 

The  Order  of  Battle  .       t., 

51 

V 

On  the  Meuse  Side 

65 

VI 

We  Break  Through     . 

75 

VII 

In  the  Wake  of  the  Infantry 

95 

VIII 

The  First  Day       .        .       .       ,. 

109 

IX 

The  Attack  Slows  Down  . 

129 

X 

By  the  Right  Flank    .       .       , 

•      147 

XI 

By  the  Left  .,....',.■■ 

.      168 

XII 

By  the  Center       .        .       ,.: 

-      194 

XIII 

Over  the  Hindenburg  Line 

.     223 

XIV 

Disengaging  Rheims 

-     249 

XV 

Veterans  Drive  a  Wedge    . 

266 

XVI 

Mastering  the  Aire  Trough 

.     280 

XVII 

Veterans  Continue  Driving 

.     294 

XVIII 

The  Grandpre  Gap  Is  Ours 

•     309 

XIX 

Another  Wedge     . 

■     324 

XX 

In  the  Meuse  Trough        ,., 

-     340 

CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


PAGE 


XXI 

Some  Changes  in  Command     , 

355 

XXII 

A  Call  for  Harbord  . 

376 

XXIII 

The  S.  0.  S.  Drives  a  Wedge     . 

39i 

XXIV 

Regulars  and  Reserves     . 

4i3 

XXV 

Leavenworth  Commands  . 

433 

XXVI 

Others  Obey       . 

449 

XXVII 

American  Manhood  . 

472 

XXVIII 

The  Mill  of  Battle 

485 

XXIX 

They  Also  Served 

,     501 

XXX 

Through  the  Kriemhilde       , 

..     515 

XXXI 

A  Citadel  and  a  Bowl 

.      540 

XXXII 

The  Final  Attack   . 

■      57i 

XXXIII 

Victory         .       .              ^      t 

■:       589 

TABLE  OF  MAPS 


FACING 
PAGE 


I. — American  Offensives  and  other  Offen- 
sives in.  which  American  troops  par- 
ticipated, May-November,  1918  .         .  2 

2. — Where  American  Divisions  were  in  line, 
from  our  entry  into  the  trenches  until 
the  Armistice 14 

3. — Offensives  of  September,  19 18.  Rela- 
tion of  Meuse-Argonne  Battle  to  the 
decisive  Allied  offensive  movement    .        20 

4. — Divisions  in  the  First  Stage  of  the 
Meuse-Argonne  Battle,  September 
26th-October    1st  .         .         .         .        52 

5. — Divisions   in   the    Second   Stage    of   the 

Meuse-Argonne  Battle,  October  1  st-3 1  st      194 

6. — Lines    reached   by    German    and   Allied 

Offensives,  1918   .....      224 

7. — In  the  Trough  of  the  Aire     .         .         .      266 

8. — The    approach    of    the    Center    to    the 

Whale-back 274 

9. — Divisions  east  of  the  Meuse  .         .         .      348 
10. — The  Services  of  Supply:  Showing  Ports 

and  Railroad  Communications     .         .      378 
II. — Divisions    in    the    Third    Stage    of    the 
Meuse-Argonne  Battle,  October  31st- 
November  nth    ......      590 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


A  CHANGE  OF  PLAN 

The  original  scope  of  Saint-Mihiel — A  winter  of  preparation  for  a 
spring  campaign — Which  is  cut  down  to  two  weeks — The  tide 
turning  for  the  Allies — The  advantage  of  a  general  attack — 
And  especially  of  numbers — The  tactician's  opportunity — Why 
the  Meuse-Argonne — The  whale-back  of  Buzancy — Striking 
for  the  Lille-Metz  railway — All  advantage  with  the  defense 
— The  audacity  of  the  enterprise — The  handicaps — A  thank- 
less task  at  best. 

We  were  in  the  fever  of  preparation  for  our  Saint- 
Mihiel  attack.  Divisions  summoned  from  the  vic- 
torious fields  of  Chateau-Thierry,  and  divisions 
which  had  been  scattered  with  the  British  and 
French  armies,  were  gathering  in  our  own  sector  in 
Lorraine.  The  French  were  to  assist  us  with  ample 
artillery  and  aviation  in  carrying  out  our  first  ambi- 
tious plan  under  our  own  command. 

After  cutting  the  redoubtable  salient,  which  had 
been  a  wedge  in  the  Allied  line  for  four  years,  we 
were  to  go  through  to  Mars-la-Tour  and  Etain, 
threatening  the  fortress  of  Metz  itself.     This  was 


2  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

to  be  the  end  of  our  191 8  campaign.  Instead  of 
wasting  our  energy  in  operations  in  mud  and  snow, 
we  should  spend  the  winter  months  in  applying  the 
lessons  which  we  had  learned  in  our  first  great  battle 
as  an  army.  Officers  who  had  been  proved  unfit 
would  be  eliminated,  and  officers  who  had  been 
proved  fit  would  be  promoted.  All  the  freshly 
arrived  divisions  from  home  camps  and  all  the  per- 
sonnel for  handling  the  artillery,  tanks,  and  other 
material  of  war  which  our  home  factories  would 
then  be  producing  in  quantity,  would  be  incorporated 
in  a  homogeneous  organization. 

The  spring  would  find  us  ready  to  play  the  part 
which  had  been  chosen  for  us  in  the  final  campaign. 
On  the  left  of  the  long  line  from  Switzerland  to  the 
North  Sea  would  be  the  British  Army,  striking  out 
from  the  Channel  bases;  in  the  center  the  French 
Army,  striking  from  the  heart  of  France;  and  on 
the  right  the  American  Army,  its  munitions  arriving 
in  full  tide  to  support  its  ceaseless  blows,  was  to 
keep  on  striking  toward  the  Rhine  until  a  decision 
was  won. 

In  the  early  days  of  September,  with  our  troops 
going  into  position  before  the  threatening  heights  of 
the  salient,  and  with  the  pressure  of  the  effort  of 
forming  in  time  an  integral  army  increasing  with 
the  suspense  as  the  12th,  the  day  set  for  the  attack, 
drew  near,  some  important  officers,  at  the  moment 


ALLIED  OFFENSIVES  IN 
■^  WHICH   AMERICAN   TROOPS 
PARTICIPATED 

-£„  AMERICAN 


OFFENSIVES 

BATTLE  LINE   MARCH  I.  191a 
JULY 

SEPT.   I.       

«  OCT.       I.       "  I    I   I   I 

SCALE    OF  miles 


20      SO     40      SO 


MAP   NO.    1 
AMERICAN      OFFENSIVES      AND      OTHER      OFFENSIVES      IN 
WHICH       AMERICAN        TROOPS       PARTICIPATED.        MAY- 
NOVEMBER,    1918. 


A  CHANGE  OF  PLAN  3 

when  their  assistance  seemed  invaluable,  were  de- 
tached from  the  Saint-Mihiel  operations.  Their 
orders  let  them  into  a  portentous  secret.  They 
were  to  begin  work  in  making  ready  for  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  attack.  While  all  the  rest  of  the  army  was 
thinking  of  our  second  offensive  as  coming  in  the 
spring  of  19 19,  they  knew  that  it  was  coming  two 
weeks  after  the  Saint-Mihiel  offensive. 

This  change  of  plan  was  the  result  of  a  conference 
between  Marshal  Foch  and  General  Pershing  which 
planned  swift  use  of  opportunity.  The  German 
Macedonian  front  was  crumbling,  the  Turks  were 
falling  back  before  Allenby,  and  the  Italians  had 
turned  the  tables  on  the  Austrians  along  the  Piave. 
Equally,  if  not  more  to  the  point  for  us,  the  Anglo- 
French  offensive  begun  on  August  8th  had  gained 
ground  with  a  facility  that  quickened  the  pulse-beat 
of  the  Allied  soldiers  and  invited  the  broadening  of 
the  front  of  attack  until,  between  Soissons  and  the 
North  Sea,  the  Germans  were  swept  off  Kemmel 
and  out  of  Armentieres  and  away  from  Arras  and 
across  the  old  Somme  battlefield. 

The  communiques  were  telling  the  truth  about 
the  Allies'  light  losses;  at  every  point  the  initiative 
was  ours.  The  Germans  were  paying  a  heavier 
price  in  rearguard  action  than  we  in  the  attack. 
It  was  a  surprising  reaction  from  the  pace  they  had 
shown  in  their  spring  offensives.     All  information 


4  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

that  came  through  the  secret  channels  from  behind 
the  enemy  lines  supported  the  conviction  of  the 
Allied  soldiers  at  the  front  that  German  morale  was 
weakening. 

Ludendorff,  the  master  tactician,  was  facing  a 
new  problem.  That  once  dependable  German 
machine  was  not  responding  with  the  alacrity,  the 
team-play,  and  the  bravery  which  had  been  his  de- 
pendence in  all  his  plans.  He  had  to  consider,  in 
view  of  the  situation  that  was  now  developing, 
whether  or  not  the  Saint-Mihiel  salient  was  worth 
holding  at  a  sacrifice  of  men.  He  knew  that  we 
were  to  attack  in  force ;  he  knew  that  in  an  offensive 
a  new  army  is  bound  to  suffer  from  dispersion  and 
from  confusion  in  its  transport  arrangements.  If 
he  allowed  us  to  strike  into  the  air,  he  could  depend 
upon  the  mires  of  the  plain  of  the  Woevre  to  im- 
pede us  while  the  defenses  of  Metz  would  further 
stay  our  advance,  with  the  result  that  his  reserves, 
released  from  Saint-Mihiel,  might  safely  be  sent  to 
resist  the  pressure  on  the  Anglo-French  front,  either 
in  holding  the  Hindenburg  line  or  in  the  arduous 
and  necessarily  deliberate  business  of  covering  his 
withdrawal  to  a  new  and  shorter  line  of  defense 
based  on  the  Meuse  River.  The  German  war 
machine,  which  had  been  tied  for  four  years  to  its 
depots  and  other  semi-permanent  arrangements  for 
trench  warfare,  could  not  move  at  short  notice. 


A  CHANGE  OF  PLAN  5 

A  generalization  might  consider  the  war  on  the 
Western  Front  as  two  great  battles  and  one  pro- 
longed siege.  For  the  first  six  weeks  there  had  been 
the  "  war  of  movement,"  as  the  French  called  it, 
until  the  Germans,  beaten  back  from  the  Marne,  had 
formed  the  old  trench  line.  Throughout  the  four 
years  of  siege  warfare  that  had  ensued,  the  object 
of  every  important  offensive,  Allied  and  German, 
had  been  a  return  to  the  "  war  of  movement." 
After  a  breach  had  been  made  in  the  fortifications, 
the  attacking  army  would  make  the  most  of  the 
momentum  of  success  in  rapid  advances  and  maneu- 
vers, throw  the  enemy's  units  into  confusion,  and, 
through  the  disruption  of  the  delicate  web  of  com- 
munications by  which  he  controlled  their  movements 
for  cohesive  effort,  precipitate  a  disaster.  The  long 
preparations  which  had  preceded  the  offensives  of 
191 5,  19 16,  and  19 17  had  always  given  the  enemy 
ample  warning  of  what  to  expect.  He  had  met  con- 
centrations for  attack  with  concentrations  for  de- 
fense. The  sector  where  the  issue  was  joined  be- 
came a  settled  area  of  violent  siege  operations  into 
which  either  side  poured  its  fresh  divisions  as  into 
a  funnel.  Succeeding  offensives,  in  realization  of  the 
limitations  of  a  narrower  sector, — which  only  left  the 
advance  in  a  V  with  flanks  exposed, — had  broad- 
ened their  fronts  of  attack;  but  none  had  been  broad 
enough  to  permit  of  vital  tactical  surprises  after  the 


6  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

initial  onset.  The  attrition  of  the  man-power  of 
the  offensive  force  had  so  kept  pace  with  that  of 
the  defensive  that  the  offensive  had  never  had  suf- 
ficient reserves  to  force  a  decision  when  the  reserves 
of  the  defensive  were  approaching  exhaustion. 
Moreover,  the  Allies  had  never  had  sufficient  pre- 
ponderance of  men,  ordnance,  and  munitions  to  war- 
rant undertaking  the  enterprise,  which  was  the 
dream  of  every  tactician,  of  several  offensives  at 
different  points  of  the  front  at  the  same  time  or  in 
steady  alternation. 

Now  from  Soissons  to  the  sea  the  French  and 
British  were  developing  a  comprehensive  movement 
of  attacks,  now  here  and  now  there,  in  rapid  suc- 
cession. This  drive  was  not  a  great  impulse  that 
died  down  as  had  previous  Allied  offensives,  but  a 
weaving,  sweeping,  methodical  advance.  Not  only 
was  German  morale  weakening  and  ours  strengthen- 
ing, but  attrition  was  now  definitely  in  our  favor. 
Ludendorff's  reserves  were  all  in  sight.  His  cards 
were  on  the  table;  we  could  feel  assured  that  we 
knew  fairly  well  how  he  would  play  them.  Our  own 
hand  was  being  reinforced  by  three  hundred  thou- 
sand men  a  month  from  the  immense  reserves  in  the 
American  training  camps.  We  could  press  our 
initiative  without  fear  of  being  embarrassed  by 
serious  counter-attacks  taking  advantage  of  our 
having  overextended  ourselves. 


A  CHANGE  OF  PLAN  7 

Thus  far,  however,  the  Germans  were  still  in 
possession  of  their  old  trench  system,  except  at  a 
few  points;  our  counter-offensive  had  only  been  re- 
covering the  ground  which  the  Germans  had  won 
in  their  spring  and  summer  offensives.  Now  that 
the  tide  had  turned  against  him,  Ludendorff,  if  his 
situation  were  as  bad  as  we  hoped,  had  two  alter- 
natives, and  a  third  which  was  a  combination  of  the 
two.  One  was  to  fall  back,  to  the  proposed  shorter 
line  of  the  Meuse.  This  would  give  him  the  winter 
for  fortifying  his  new  positions.  As  a  shorter  front 
would  allow  him  deeper  concentrations  for  defense 
and  the  Allies  less  room  for  maneuvers  in  surprise, 
it  must  be  their  purpose  to  prevent  his  successful 
retreat  by  prompt,  aggressive,  and  persistent  action. 
The  other  alternative  was  to  make  a  decisive  stand 
on  the  old  line,  where  for  four  years  the  Germans 
had  been  perfecting  their  fortifications.  If  we 
should  overwhelm  them  when  he  was  holding  them 
rigidly,  we  should  have  the  advantage  of  a  wall 
in  fragments  when  it  did  break.  The  third  plan 
was  to  use  the  old  fortifications  as  a  line  of  strong 
resistance  in  supporting  his  withdrawal.  Broadly, 
this  was  the  one  that  he  was  to  follow. 

Everything  pointed  to  the  time  as  ripe  for  the 
fulfilment  for  the  Allies  of  the  tactical  dream  which 
had  called  Ludendorff  to  his  own  ambitious  cam- 
paign in  the  spring  of  19 18.     Marshal  Foch  would 


8  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

now  broaden  his  front  of  alternating  attacks  from 
Verdun  to  the  North  Sea,  in  the  hope  of  freeing  the 
Allied  armies  from  trench  shackles  for  a  deci- 
sive campaign  in  the  open.  The  American  part 
in  this  bold  undertaking  was  to  be  its  boldest 
feature. 

If  a  soldier  from  Mars  had  come  to  earth  at  any 
time  from  October,  19 14,  to  October,  19 18,  and  had 
been  shown  on  a  flat  map  the  fronts  of  the  two 
adversaries,  he  would  have  said  that  the  obvious 
strategic  point  of  a  single  offensive  would  be  be- 
tween the  Meuse  River  and  the  Argonne  Forest. 
This  would  be  a  blow  against  the  enemy's  lines  of 
communication :  a  blow  equivalent  to  turning  his 
flank.  If  the  soldier  from  Mars  had  been  shown  a 
relief  map,  he  would  have  changed  his  mind,  and 
he  would  have  perfectly  understood,  as  a  soldier, 
why  all  the  offensives  had  been  in  the  north,  from 
Champagne  to  Flanders,  where  breaking  through 
the  main  line  of  defenses  would  bring  the  aggressor 
to  better  ground  for  his  decisive  movement  in  the 
open.  He  would  also  have  understood  why  the 
front  from  the  Argonne  to  the  Swiss  border  had 
been  tranquil  since  the  abortive  effort  of  the  Ger- 
mans at  Verdun. 

When  Ludendorff  undertook  his  great  offensive  of 
March,  19 18,  he  did  not  repeat  Falkenhayn's  error, 
but  turned  to  the  north,  where  the  Allies  had  made 


A  CHANGE  OF  PLAN  9 

their  attacks.  In  that  Lorraine-Alsatian  stalemate 
to  the  south,  with  the  Vosges  mountains  and  inter- 
locking hills  from  Switzerland  to  the  forts  of  Metz 
as  the  stronghold  of  the  Germans,  and  the  forts  of 
Verdun,  Toul,  Epinal,  and  Belfort  as  the  strong- 
holds of  the  French,  the  odds  were  apparently  too 
much  against  an  offensive  by  either  side  to  warrant 
serious  consideration.  Yet  a  watch  was  kept.  Over 
the  French  mind  was  always  the  shadow  of  a  pos- 
sible German  offensive  toward  Belfort;  and,  when 
the  sector  which  our  young  army  was  to  hold  in 
Alsace  and  Lorraine  had  been  first  discussed  in  July, 
19 17,  the  French  excluded  the  defense  of  a  portion 
of  the  front  opposite  Belfort,  with  the  polite  ex- 
planation that  they  preferred  to  hold  that  them- 
selves. But  the  Germans  never  did  more  than, 
make  the  feint  of  an  offensive  in  the  south,  which 
Ludendorff  used  in  the  winter  of  19 18  to  draw  off 
French  troops  and  guns  from  the  north :  for  the 
army  with  the  numbers  and  the  initiative  of  offense 
can  always  force  the  defense  to  waste  movements  to 
meet  threats  of  attack.  This  was  another  advan- 
tage which  the  Allies  could  now  use  in  keeping 
Ludendorff  in  doubt  as  to  where  our  real  blows 
were  to  be  struck. 

The  heights  of  the  Saint-Mihiel  salient,  which  look 
directly  across  the  plain  of  the  Woevre  to  the  fort- 
ress of  Metz,  may  be  said  roughly  to  have  formed 


io  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  left  flank  of  the  Lorraine-Alsatian  stalemate. 
They  continue  onward  in  the  hills  which  are  crowned 
by  the  forts  of  Verdun,  and  then  across  the  Meuse 
River  for  a  distance  of  twenty  miles  through  the 
bastion  of  the  Argonne  Forest,  where  they  gradually 
break  into  the  more  rolling  country  of  Champagne. 
The  Meuse  winds  past  Saint-Mihiel  and  through 
the  town  of  Verdun,  and  then,  in  its  devious  course, 
swings  gradually  to  the  northwest  until,  at  Sedan, 
it  turns  full  westward. 

Our  new  offensive  was  to  be  between  the  Meuse 
River  and  the  western  edge  of  the  Argonne  Forest. 
East  of  the  forest  is  the  little  river  Aire,  and  be- 
tween its  valley  and  the  valley  of  the  Meuse  rises 
back  of  the  German  front  a  whale-back  of  heights, 
as  I  shall  describe  them  for  the  sake  of  bringing  a 
picture  to  mind,  though  the  comparison  is  not  abso- 
lute. The  practical  summit  of  the  whale-back  is  to 
the  eastward  of  the  village  of  Buzancy.  We  may- 
use  Buzancy  as  a  symbol:  for  it  is  only  in  a  highly 
technical  history  that  the  detail  of  names,  confusing 
to  the  general  and  even  the  professional  reader,  is 
warrantable.  The  summit  of  the  whale-back  gained, 
you  are  looking  down  an  apron  of  rolling  ground 
and  small  hills  toward  the  turn  of  the  Meuse  west- 
ward past  Sedan,  where  the  German  Army  sur- 
rounded the  French  Army  in  the  Franco-Prussian 
War. 


A  CHANGE  OF  PLAN  if 

To  the  northeast,  readily  accessible  to  attack,  are 
the  Briey  iron-fields,  which  were  invaluable  to  the 
Germans  for  war  material.  Along  the  valley  of  the 
Meuse  after  it  turns  westward,  and  along  the 
Franco-Belgian  frontier  runs  the  great  railroad  from 
Metz  to  Lille,  which  is  double-track  all  the  way  and 
in  large  part  four-track.  Incidentally  this  connected 
the  coal  fields  of  northern  France  with  Germany, 
but  its  main  service  was  to  form  the  western  trunk 
line  of  communication  for  the  German  armies  in 
Belgium  and  northern  and  eastern  France.  It  was 
linked  up  with  the  railways  spreading  northward 
into  Belgium  and  southward  toward  Amiens  and 
Paris  in  the  arterial  system  which  gave  its  life  blood 
to  the  German  occupation.  If  this  road  were  cut, 
the  German  troops  in  retreat  would  have  to 
pass  through  the  narrow  neck  of  the  bottle  at 
Liege. 

The  dramatic  possibilities  of  gaining  the  heights 
of  Buzancy  and  bringing  the  Lille-Metz  tracks  under 
artillery  fire  had  the  appeal  of  a  strategic  effect  of 
Napoleonic  days.  The  German  staff  had  been  fully 
aware  of  the  danger  when,  in  their  retreat  after  their 
repulse  on  the  Marne,  which  the  world  saw  only  as 
the  spectacle  of  the  French  Army  inflicting  a  defeat 
on  an  advancing  foe,  it  used  its  tactical  opportunity 
for  choosing,  with  comparative  deliberation,  advan- 
tageous   defensive    positions    from    the    Argonne 


12  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Forest  to  the  Meuse  at  the  foot  of  the  whale-back. 

For  future  operations  it  was  depending  upon 
more  than  the  elaborate  fortifications  of  that  line. 
Every  hundred  yards  from  the  foot  of  the  whale- 
back  to  the  summit  was  in  its  favor  in  resisting 
attack.  Higher  ground  leads  to  still  higher  ground, 
not  in  a  regular  system  of  ridges  but  in  a  terrain 
where  nature  cunningly  serves  the  soldier.  No- 
where might  the  defense  invite  the  attack  into 
salients  with  a  better  confidence,  or  feel  more  cer- 
tain of  the  success  of  his  counter-attacks.  All  roads, 
and  all  valleys  where  roads  might  be  built,  were 
under  observation.  Heights  looked  across  to 
heights  on  either  side  of  the  two  river  troughs, 
heights  of  every  shape  from  sharp  ridges  and 
rounded  hills  to  peaked  summits  crowned  by  woods. 
Tongues  of  woods  ran  across  valleys.  Patches  of 
woods  covered  ravines  and  gullies  where  machine- 
gunners  would  have  ideal  cover  and  command  of 
ground.  Reverse  slopes  formed  walls  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  artillery.  The  attack  must  fight 
blindly;  the  defense  could  fight  with  eyes  open. 

Had  the  Allies  attempted  an  offensive  in  the 
Meuse-Argonne  sector  in  the  first  four  years  of  the 
war,  the  long  and  extensive  preparations  then  re- 
garded as  requisite  for  an  ambitious  effort  against 
first-line  fortifications  would  have  warned  the  Ger- 
mans in  time  to  make  full  use  of  their  positions  in 


A  CHANGE  OF  PLAN  13 

counter-preparations.  All  the  advantage  of  rail- 
roads and  highways  were  with  them  in  concentrating 
men  and  material.  It  might  not  be  a  long  distance 
in  miles  from  the  Argonne  line  to  the  Lille-Metz 
railway  or  to  the  Briey  iron-fields,  but  it  was  a  long 
distance  if  you  were  to  travel  it  with  an  army  and 
its  impedimenta  against  the  German  Army  in  its 
prime.  When  attrition  was  in  his  favor  in  the 
early  period,  the  German  might  well  have  preferred 
that  the  Allied  offensive  of  Champagne,  or  Loos, 
or  the  Somme,  or  Passchendaele,  should  have  been 
attempted  here :  thus  leaving  open  to  him,  after  he 
had  inflicted  a  bloody  repulse  in  this  sector,  the 
better  ground  in  the  north  for  a  telling  counter- 
offensive. 

Thus  an  Allied  effort  toward  Mezieres,  Sedan, 
and  Briey  would  have  been  madness  until  the  pro- 
pitious moment  came.  Had  it  really  come  now? 
Anyone  who  was  familiar  with  the  history  of  war- 
fare on  the  Western  Front  might  ask  the  question 
thoughtfully.  Bear  in  mind  that  we  had  not  yet 
taken  Saint-Mihiel  and  were  not  yet  certain  of  our 
success  there;  and  that  from  Soissons  to  Switzer- 
land the  old  German  line  was  intact.  North  of 
Soissons  we  had  broken  into  it  at  only  a  few  points. 
In  the  event  that  they  had  had  to  make  a  strategic 
withdrawal,  the  Germans  had  always  followed  the 
tactical  system  of  a  full  recoil  to  strong  chosen  posi- 


i4  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

tions,  where  they  resisted  with  sudden  and  terrific 
violence  and  held  stubbornly  and  thriftily  until  they 
began  one  of  their  powerful  counter-thrusts. 

Thus  they  had  fallen  back  after  their  defeat  on 
the  Marne,  from  before  Warsaw,  and  from 
Bapaume  to  the  Hindenburg  line.  Again  and  again 
their  morale  had  been  reported  breaking,  and  they 
had  seemed  in  a  disadvantageous  position,  only  to 
recover  their  spirit  as  by  imperial  command  and  to 
extricate  themselves  in  a  reversal  of  form.  The 
German  Staff  was  still  in  being;  the  German  Army 
still  had  reserve  divisions  and  was  back  on  power- 
ful trench  systems  with  ample  artillery,  machine- 
guns,  and  ammunition.  Whether  Ludendorff  was  to 
stand  on  the  old  line  or  withdraw  to  a  new  line, 
either  operation  would  be  imperiled  by  the  loss  of 
those  heights  between  the  Argonne  and  the  Meuse. 
He  must  say,  as  Petain  had  said  at  Verdun:  "  They 
shall  not  pass !  " 

In  my  "  America  in  France  "  I  have  told  of  our 
project,  formed  in  June,  19 17,  when  we  had  not  yet 
a  division  of  infantry  in  France  and  submarine  de- 
struction was  on  the  increase,  for  an  army  of  a 
million  men  in  France,  capable  of  the  expansion  to 
two  million  which  must  come,  General  Pershing 
thought,  before  the  war  could  be  won.  That  far- 
sighted  conception  and  the  decision  which  was  now 
taken    are    the    two    towering    landmarks    of    the 


MEUSE-AR60NNE 
1.12]   2< 

2.  32.121 

3.  33. 

4.  35. 
5.(31  37 
26.    42.(21  89. 
28.     77(2)  90. 

91- 
92. 


SCALE    OF  MILES 


\ 


20      30      40      50 


«1(3) 

28. 

•82.(2) 

*2. 

35. 

88 

•4 

35. 

•  89- 

•5. 

37 

♦go. 

7- 

•42. 

92- 

♦2b  (21 

/»■ 

> 

BATTLE  LINE    MARCH      21.     I918   ' 
NUMBERS    INDICATE    DIVISIONS. 
NUMBER     IN    PARENTHESIS    INDICATES 
NUMBER   OF   TIMES    IN     LINE. 
♦  STARS  INDICATE    DIVISIONS    OPERATIN6  IN    ST-MIHIEL  OFFENSIVE, 
THE    33^    DIVISION    WAS     NEVER    ASSEMBLED  AS  A    DIVISION. 


^ 


29-W 
32.  88 


MAP    NO.    2 

WHERE    AMERICAN   DIVISIONS    WERE   IN   LINE,    FROM    OUR 

ENTRY  INTO  THE  TRENCHES  UNTIL  THE  ARMISTICE. 


A  CHANGE  OF  PLAN  15 

troublous  road  of  our  effort  in  France.  By  July  1st, 
19 1 8,  we  had  a  million  men  in  France,  or  nearly 
double  the  number  of  the  schedule  arranged  between 
the  French  and  American  governments.  We  should 
soon  have  two  millions. 

When  the  Allies  called  for  more  man-power,  in 
the  crisis  of  the  German  offensive  of  March,  19 18, 
the  British  had  supplied  the  shipping  that  brought 
the  divisions  from  our  home  training  camps  tumbling 
into  France.  They  were  divisions,  not  an  army; 
and  in  equipment  they  were  not  even  divisions. 
They  had  been  hurried  to  the  front  to  support  the 
British  and  French  as  reserves,  and  they  had  been 
thrown  into  battle  to  resist  the  later  German  of- 
fensives. There  had  been  no  niggardliness  in  our 
attitude.  We  offered  all  our  man-power  as  cannon- 
fodder  to  meet  the  emergency.  Across  the  Paris 
road  behind  Chateau-Thierry  we  had  given  more 
than  the  proof  of  our  valor.  In  the  drive  toward 
Soissons  and  to  the  Vesle  we  had  established  our 
personal  mastery  over  the  enemy.  We  had  pressed 
him  at  close  quarters,  and  kept  on  pressing  him  until 
he  had  to  go.  The  confidence  inherent  in  our  nature, 
strengthened  by  training,  had  grown  with  the  test 
of  battle.  We  had  known  none  of  the  reverses 
which  lead  to  caution.  More  than  ever  our  im- 
pulse was  to  attack. 

Chateau-Thierry  had  taught  Marshal  Foch  that 


1 6  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

he  could  depend  upon  any  American  division  as 
"  shock  "  troops  which  would  charge  and  keep  on 
charging  until  exhausted.  Now  he  would  use  this 
quality  to  the  utmost.  To  the  American  Army  he 
assigned  the  part  which  relied  upon  the  call  of  vic- 
tory to  soldiers  as  fresh  as  the  French  on  the  Marne, 
and,  in  their  homesickness  for  their  native  land, 
impatient  for  quick  results.  If  a  Congressional 
Committee,  knowing  all  that  General  Pershing 
knew,  had  been  told  of  the  plan  of  the  Meuse- 
Argonne,  they  would  probably  have  said:  "No 
leader  shall  sacrifice  our  men  in  that  fashion.  We 
will  not  stand  by  and  see  them  sent  to  slaughter." 

The  reputation  of  a  commander  was  at  stake. 
Should  we  break  through  promptly  to  the  summit  of 
the  heights,  then  we  might  take  divisions,  corps, 
even  armies,  prisoners;  but  that  was  a  dream  de- 
pendent upon  a  deterioration  in  German  staff  work 
and  in  the  morale  of  the  German  soldier  which  was 
inconceivable.  The  great  prize  was  the  hope  of 
an  early  decision  of  the  war;  in  expending  a  hun- 
dred or  two  hundred  thousand  casualties  in  the 
autumn  and  early  winter,  instead  of  a  million,  per- 
haps, during  the  coming  summer.  At  home  we 
should  be  saved  from  drafting  more  millions  of  men 
into  our  army;  from  the  floating  of  more  liberty 
loans;  from  harsher  restrictions  upon  our  daily  life; 
from  the  calling  of  more  women  and  children  to 


A  CHANGE  OF  PLAN  17 

hard  labor;  from  the  prolongation  of  the  agony,  the 
suspense,  the  horror,  and  the  costs  of  the  cataclysm 
of  destruction. 

There  were  more  handicaps  than  the  heights  to 
consider:  those  of  our  unreadiness.  If  we  had 
failed,  this  would  have  meant  the  burden  of  criticism 
heavy  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  commander-in-chief, 
who  would  have  been  recalled.  Dreams  of  any 
miraculous  success  aside,  it  was  not  the  example  of 
the  swift  results  in  a  day  at  Antietam,  or  the  brilliant 
maneuver  of  Jackson  at  Chancellorsville,  but  the 
wrestling,  hammering,  stubbornly  resisting  effort  of 
the  men  of  the  North  and  South  in  the  Appomattox 
campaign  which  was  to  call  upon  our  heritage  of 
fortitude.  In  that  series  of  attacks  which  Marshal 
Foch  was  now  to  develop,  our  part  as  the  right 
flank  of  the  three  great  armies  was  in  keeping  with 
the  original  plan  of  1917:  only  we  were  facing  the 
Meuse  instead  of  the  Rhine.  Without  sufficient 
material  or  experience,  we  were  to  keep  on  driving, 
not  looking  forward  to  the  dry  ground  and  fair 
weather  of  summer  but  toward  the  inclemency  of 
winter.  There  against  the  main  artery  of  German 
communications  we  were  to  launch  a  threat  whose 
power  was  dependent  upon  the  determined  initiative 
of  our  men.  Every  German  soldier  killed  or 
wounded  was  one  withdrawn  from  the  fronts  of  the 
British  and  French,  or  from  Ludendorff's  reserves 


1 8  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

which  must  protect  his  retreat;  and  every  shell 
and  every  machine-gun  bullet  which  was  fired  at  us 
was  one  less  fired  at  our  Allies.  It  was  to  be  in 
many  respects  a  thankless  battle,  and  for  this  reason 
it  was  the  more  honor  to  our  soldiers. 


II 


INTO  LINE  FOR  ATTACK 

The  Meuse-Argonne  and  the  Somme  Battle  of  1916 — The  British 
had  four  months  of  preparation — And  a  trained  army — But 
a  resolute  enemy — Our  untried  troops — Outguessing  Luden- 
dorff — Prime  importance  of  surprise — Blindman's  buff — 'What 
it  means  to  move  armies — Fixing  supply  centers — Stafrs  arrive 
— Their  inexperience — Learning  on  the  run — Our  confidence — 
Aiming  for  the  stars — Up  on  time. 

Comparisons  with  the  Battle  of  the  Somme,  the 
first  great  British  offensive,  which  I  observed 
through  the  summer  of  19 16,  often  occurred  to  me 
during  the  Meuse-Argonne  battle.  In  both  a  new 
army,  in  its  vigor  of  aggressive  impulse,  continued 
its  attack  with  an  indomitable  will,  counting  its  gains 
by  hundreds  of  yards,  but  never  for  a  moment  yield- 
ing the  initiative  in  its  tireless  attrition. 

The  British  were  four  months  in  preparing  for 
their  thrust  on  the  basis  of  nearly  two  years'  train- 
ing in  active  warfare,  with  all  their  arrangements  for 
transport  and  supply  settled  in  a  small  area  only 
an  hour's  steaming  across  the  Channel  from  home. 
Behind  their  lines  they  built  light  railroads  and 
highways.  They  had  ample  billeting  space,  and 
their  great  hospitals  were  within  easy  reach.     They 

19 


20  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

gathered  road-repairing  machinery  and  trained 
their  labor  battalions;  built  depots  and  yards;  estab- 
lished immense  dumps  of  ammunition  and  engineer- 
ing material;  brought  their  heavy  guns  into  position 
methodically,  and  registered  them  with  caution  over 
a  long  period;  set  an  immense  array  of  trench 
mortars  in  secure  positions;  dug  deep  assembly 
trenches  for  the  troops  to  occupy  before  going 
"over  the  top;'  and  ran  their  water  pipes  up  to 
the  front  line,  ready  for  extension  into  conquered 
territory. 

Their  divisions  had  been  seasoned  by  long  trench 
experience,  tested  in  the  terrific  fire  of  the  Ypres 
salient  and  trained  in  elaborate  trench  raids  for  a 
great  offensive.  All  their  methods  were  as  de- 
liberate as  British  thoroughness  required.  Units 
were  carefully  rehearsed  in  their  parts,  and  their 
liaison  worked  out  by  staffs  that  had  long  operated 
together.  Commanders  of  battalions,  brigades,  and 
divisions  had  been  tried  out,  and  corps  commanders 
and  staffs  developed. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Germans  knew  that  the 
British  attack  was  coming.  Their  army  was  in  the 
prime  of  its  numbers  and  efficiency.  They  had  im- 
mence  forces  of  reserves  to  draw  upon  to  meet  an 
offensive  which  was  centered  in  one  sector,  with  no 
danger  of  having  to  meet  offensives  in  another 
sector.     We   were   striking  in  one   of   several  of- 


MAIN    RAILROADS     METZ-LILLE 

BATTLE   FRONT    SEPT.  251=  I918 

ARROWS    SHOW  OTHER   SEPTEMBER   OFFENSIVES. 

ACCOMPANriN&   THE  MEUSE  -AR&ONNE  OFFENSIVE 

WHICH      STRUCK    FOR  THE   GERMAN    LINE    OF  COMMUNICATIONS. 

SHADED   AREA    IS    BRIEY     IRONFIELD.  ^f\ 

SCALE    OF   MILES 


O        IO       20       SO      40      SO 


BELFORT 


I. 

r 


MAP    NO.    3 

OFFENSIVES  OF  SEPTEMBER,  1918.  RELATION  OF  MEUSE- 
ARGONNE  BATTLE  TO  THE  DECISIVE  ALLIED  OFFENSIVE 
MOVEMENT. 


INTO  LINE  FOR  ATTACK  21 

fensives,  each  having  for  its  object  rapidity  and 
suddenness  of  execution,  over  about  the  same 
breadth  of  front  as  the  British  in  19 16;  and  against 
the  Germans,  not  in  their  prime,  as  I  have  said, 
but  when  they  had  lost  the  initiative  and  were 
deteriorating. 

The  increase  of  the  skill  of  infantry  in  the  at- 
tack, in  their  nicely  calculated  and  acrobatic  coordi- 
nation with  protecting  curtains  of  accurate  artillery 
fire,  had  been  the  supreme  factor  in  the  progress  of 
tactics.  As  a  young  army  we  had  all  these  lessons 
to  learn  and  to  apply  to  our  own  special  problems. 
As  we  could  not  use  the  divisions  that  were  at  Saint- 
Mihiel  in  the  initial  onset  in  the  Meuse-Argonne, 
we  had  to  depend  upon  others  from  training  camps 
and  upon  those  which  were  just  being  relieved  from 
the  Chateau-Thierry  area.  Two  of  them  had  never 
been  under  fire;  several  had  had  only  trench  experi- 
ence. They  had  not  fought  or  trained  together  as 
an  army.  Many  of  our  commanders  had  not  been 
tried  out.  Some  of  the  divisions  were  as  yet  with- 
out their  artillery  brigades;  others  had  never  served 
with  their  artillery  brigades  in  action.  By  the  morn- 
ing of  September  25th,  or  thirteen  days  after  the 
Saint-Mihiel  attack,  all  the  infantry,  the  guns,  the 
aviation,  and  the  tanks  must  be  in  position  to  throw 
their  weight,  in  disciplined  solidarity,  against 
a  line  of  fortifications  which  had  all  the  strength 


22  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

that  ant-like   industry  could  build   on  chosen   posi- 
tions. 

We  had  neither  material  nor  time  for  extensive 
preparations.  We  must  depend  upon  the  shock  of 
a  sudden  and  terrific  impact  and  the  momentum  of 
irresistible  dash.  If  we  took  the  enemy  by  surprise 
when  he  was  holding  the  line  weakly  with  few  re- 
serves, we  might  go  far.  Indeed,  never  was  the 
element  of  surprise  more  essential.  We  were  coun- 
tering Ludendorff's  anticipation  that,  if  he  withdrew 
from  the  salient,  we  should  stall  our  forces  ineffec- 
tually in  the  mud  before  Metz:  countering  it  with 
the  anticipation  that  he  would  never  consider  that  a 
new  army,  though  it  grasped  his  intention,  would 
within  two  weeks'  time  dare  another  offensive 
against  the  heights  of  the  whale-back. 

For  our  dense  concentrations  we  had  only  two 
first-class  roads  leading  up  to  the  twenty-mile  front 
between  the  Meuse  and  the  Forest's  edge.  These 
were  ill  placed  for  our  purpose.  We  might  form 
our  ammunition  dumps  in  the  woods,  but  nothing 
could  have  been  more  fatal  than  to  have  built  a 
road,  for  to  an  aviator  nothing  is  so  visible  as  the 
line  of  a  new  road.  Where  aviators  were  flying  at  a 
height  of  twelve  thousand  feet  in  the  Battle  of  the 
Somme,  they  were  now  flying  with  a  splendid 
audacity  as  low  as  a  thousand  feet,  which  enabled 
them  to  locate  new  building,  piles  of  material,  even 


INTO  LINE  FOR  ATTACK  23 

well-camouflaged  gun  positions;  and  the  minute 
changes  in  a  photograph  taken  today  in  comparison 
with  one  of  yesterday  were  sufficient  evidence  to  a 
staff  expert  that  some  movement  was  in  progress. 
An  unusual  amount  of  motor-truck  traffic  or  even  an 
unusual  number  of  automobiles,  not  to  mention  the 
marching  of  an  unusual  number  of  troops  along  a 
road  by  day,  was  immediately  detected. 

All  our  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men,  all  the 
artillery,  all  the  transport  must  move  forward  at 
night.  To  show  lights  was  to  sprinkle  tell-tale  stars 
in  the  carpet  of  darkness  as  another  indication  that 
a  sector  which  had  known  routine  quiet  for  month 
on  month  was  awakening  with  new  life  that  could 
mean  only  one  thing  to  a  military  observer.  With 
the  first  suspicion  of  an  offensive  the  enemy's  troops 
in  the  trenches  would  be  put  on  guard,  reserves 
might  be  brought  up,  machine-guns  installed,  more 
aviators  summoned,  trench  raids  undertaken,  and  all 
the  means  of  information  quickened  in  search  for 
enlightening  details. 

It  was  possible  that  the  German  might  have 
learned  our  plan  at  its  inception  from  secret  agents 
within  our  own  lines.  If  he  had,  it  would  not  have 
been  the  first  time  that  this  had  happened.  In  turn, 
his  preparations  for  defense  might  be  kept  secret  in 
order  to  make  his  reception  hotter  and  more  crafty. 
He  might  let  the  headlong  initiative  of  our  troops 


24  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

carry  us  into  a  salient  at  certain  points  before  he 
exerted  his  pressure  disastrously  for  us  on  our 
flanks.  Thus  he  had  met  the  French  offensive  of 
the  spring  of  19 17;  thus  he  had  concentrated  his 
murder  from  Gommecourt  to  La  Boisselle  in  the 
Somme  Battle. 

Not  only  had  our  army  to  "  take  over  "  from  the 
French  in  all  the  details  of  a  sector,  from  transport 
and  headquarters  to  front  line,  but  the  Fourth 
French  Army,  on  our  left,  which  was  to  attack  at 
the  same  hour,  must  be  reinforced  with  troops  and 
guns.  The  decision  that  the  Saint-Mihiel  offensive 
was  not  to  follow  through  to  Etain  and  Mars-la- 
Tour  meant  that  French  as  well  as  American  units 
and  material  must  move  from  that  sector  to  the 
Argonne.  Immediately  it  had  covered  the  charge 
of  our  troops  the  heavy  artillery,  both  French  and 
American,  was  to  be  started  on  its  way,  and,  after 
it,  other  artillery  and  auxiliary  troops  and  transport 
of  all  kinds  as  they  could  be  spared. 

"  It  sounds  a  bromide  to  say  that  you  cannot 
begin  attacking  until  your  army  is  at  the  front," 
said  a  young  reserve  officer,  "  but  I  never  knew  what 
it  meant  before  to  get  an  army  to  the  front." 

He  had  studied  his  march  tables  at  the  Staff 
School  at  Langres;  now  jhe  was  applying  them. 
Young  reserve  officers  had  a  taste  of  the  difficulties 
of  troop  movements.    They  had  to  locate  units,  see 


INTO  LINE  FOR  ATTACK  25 

that  they  received  their  orders,  and  set  them  on  their 
way  according  to  schedule,  with  strict  injunctions 
from  "  on  high  "  to  see  that  everybody  was  up  on 
time.  They  had  lessons  in  the  speed  of  units  and 
the  capacity  of  roads  which,  at  the  sight  of  a  column 
of  soldiers  on  the  march,  will  always  rise  in  their 
recollections  of  anxious  days. 

When  haste  is  vital,  unexpected  contingencies  due 
to  the  uneven  character  of  men  and  materials  break 
into  any  system.  That  is  the  "  trouble  "  with  war, 
as  one  of  these  young  officers  said.  Everything  de- 
pends upon  system,  and  system  is  impossible  when 
the  very  nature  of  war  develops  unexpected  demands 
that  are  prejudicial  to  any  dependable  processes  of 
routine.  With  urgent  calls  for  locomotives  and 
rolling  stock  coming  from  every  quarter  to  meet  the 
demands  of  the  extension  of  the  Allied  offensive 
campaign  over  an  unexampled  breadth  of  front,  the 
railroads,  which  were  few  in  this  region,  could  not 
transport  troops  and  artillery  which  ordinarily 
would  have  gone  by  train. 

Three  road  routes  were  available  from. the  Saint- 
Mihiel  to  the  Argonne  region.  Artillery  tractors 
that  could  go  only  three  were  in  columns  with 
vehicles  that  could  go  ten  and  fifteen  miles  an  hour. 
Field  artillery  regiments,  coming  out  from  the  Saint- 
Mihiel  sector  after  two  weeks  of  ceaseless  travail, 
were  delayed  by  having  their  horses  killed  by  shell- 


26  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

fire.  The  exhaustion  of  horses  from  overwork  was 
becoming  increasingly  pitiful.  They  could  not  have 
the  proper  rest  and  care.  In  some  instances  they 
made  in  a  night  only  half  the  distance  which 
schedules  required.  When  the  deep  mud,  and  out- 
bursts of  bombardment  from  the  enemy,  retarded  the 
relief  of  troops,  motor  buses,  which  were  waiting 
for  them,  had  to  be  dispatched  on  other  errands, 
leaving  weary  legs  to  march  instead  of  ride.  Mili- 
tary police,  army  and  corps  auxiliaries  of  all  kinds, 
and  various  headquarters  must  be  transferred. 

Officers  who  had  hoped  for  a  little  sleep  once 
the  Saint-Mihiel  offensive  was  under  way  received 
"  travel  orders,"  with  instructions  to  reach  the 
Argonne  area  by  hopping  a  motor-truck  or  in  any 
way  they  could.  Soldiers,  after  marching  all  night, 
might  seek  sleep  in  the  villages  if  there  were  room 
in  houses,  barns,  or  haylofts.  Blocks  of  traffic  were 
frequent  when  some  big  gun  or  truck  slewed  into  a 
slough  in  the  darkness. 

The  processions  on  these  three  roads  from  Saint- 
Mihiel  represented  only  one  of  many  movements 
from  all  directions  to  the  Argonne  sector.  French 
units  had  to  pass  by  our  new  front  to  that  of  the 
Fourth  Army.  A  French  officer  at  Bar-le-Duc,  who 
had  charge  of  routing  all  the  traffic,  was  an  old  hand 
at  this  business  of  moving  armies.  He  perfectly 
appreciated  that  curses  were  speeding  toward  his 


INTO  LINE  FOR  ATTACK  27 

office  from  all  four  points  of  the  compass  where 
traffic  was  stalled  or  columns  waited  an  interminably- 
long  time  at  cross-roads  for  their  turn  to  move,  or 
guns  or  tanks  or  anything  else  in  all  the  varied  as- 
sortment were  not  arriving  on  schedule  time.  By 
telephone  he  kept  in  touch  with  American  and 
French  units  in  the  process  of  the  mobilization,  while 
he  moved  his  chessmen  on  the  rigid  lines  of  his 
map. 

The  "  sacred  road  "  from  Bar-le-Duc  to  Verdun 
coursed  again  with  the  full  tide  of  urgent  demands; 
only  this  time  the  traffic  turned  off  on  the  roads  to 
the  left  instead  of  going  on  to  the  town.  With  each 
passing  day,  as  the  concentration  increased,  daylight 
became  a  more  portentous  foe.  "  No  lights !  No 
lights!'  was  the  watchword  of  all  thought  which 
the  military  police  spoke  in  no  uncertain  tones  to 
any  chauffeur  who  thought  that  one  flash  of  his 
lamps  would  do  no  harm;  some  of  the  language 
used  was  brimstone  and  figuratively  illuminating 
enough  to  have  made  an  aurora  borealis.  Camou- 
flage became  an  obsession  of  everyone  who  had  any 
responsibility.  Discomfort,  loss  of  temper  and  of 
time  were  the  handicaps  in  this  blindman's  buff  of 
trying  to  keep  the  landscape  looking  as  natural  by 
day  as  it  had  in  the  previous  months  of  tranquil 
trench  warfare. 

Traffic  management  was  only  one   and  not  the 


28  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

most  trying  or  important  part  of  the  problem.  If 
the  demands  upon  the  Services  of  Supply  were  not 
met,  failure  was  certain :  our  army  would  be  hungry 
and  without  ammunition.  In  no  department  was  the 
additional  burden  of  the  Meuse-Argonne  more 
keenly  felt  than  in  this.  New  railheads  must  be 
established,  and  additional  vehicular  transport  sent 
forward  to  connect  up  with  the  new  front.  Though 
the  mastering  of  the  objective  in  the  Saint-Mihiel 
operation  released  a  certain  surplus,  it  was  dis- 
turbingly small.  The  line  established  after  the 
salient  was  cut  had  become  violent.  It  would  re- 
quire large  quantities  of  supplies  as  long  as  we 
should  hold  it;  and  it  was  already  evident  that  the 
Meuse-Argonne  offensive  was  to  be  a  greedy  monster 
which  could  never  have  its  hunger  satisfied. 

Every  hour  that  we  kept  the  enemy  ignorant  of 
the  strength  of  our  concentration  was  an  hour 
gained.  The  one  thing  that  he  must  not  know  was 
the  number  of  divisions  which  we  were  marshaling 
for  our  effort.  They  were  the  sure  criterion  of  the 
formidability  of  our  intentions.  The  most  delicate 
task  of  all  was  the  taking  over  of  the  front  line  from 
the  French.  Not  until  the  stage  was  set  with  the 
accessories  of  the  heavy  artillery,  the  new  depots, 
and  ammunition  dumps  did  the  roads  near  the  front, 
cleared  for  their  progress,  throb  under  the  blanket 
of  night  with  the  scraping  rhythm  of  the  doughboys' 


INTO  LINE  FOR  ATTACK  29 

marching  steps,  infusing  in  the  preparations  the  life 
of  a  myriad  human  pulse-beats  in  unison.  Our  faith 
was  in  them,  in  the  days  before  the  battle  and  all 
through  the  battle  to  the  end.  Their  faces  so  many 
moving  white  points  in  the  darkness,  each  figure 
under  its  heavy  equipment  seemed  alike  in  shadowy 
silhouette.  In  the  mystery  of  night  their  disci- 
plined power,  suggestive  of  the  tiger  creeping 
stealthily  forward  for  the  spring  on  his  prey,  was 
even  more  significant  than  by  day. 

The  men  were  prepared  in  the  red  blood  that 
coursed  young  arteries,  in  their  litheness  and  their 
pride  and  will  to  "  go  to  it."  They  had  their  rifles, 
their  belts  full  of  ammunition,  their  gas  masks,  and 
their  rations.  It  was  not  for  them  to  ask  any  ques- 
tions— not  even  if  the  barrages  which  would  cover 
their  charges  would  be  accurate,  if  the  tanks  would 
kill  machine-gun  nests,  if  the  barbed  wire  would  be 
cut,  and  if  their  generals  would  make  mistakes.  Sus- 
pense, not  of  the  mind  but  of  the  heart,  lightened  at 
the  sight  of  their  movement,  so  automatic  and  yet  so 
stirringly  human.  The  gigantic  preparations  of 
dumps,  gun  positions,  and  trains  of  powerful  trac- 
tors became  only  a  demonstration  of  the  mighty 
energy  of  our  industrial  age  beside  that  subtler  en- 
deavor which  had  formed  them  for  their  task  and 
set  them  down  as  the  pawns  of  a  staff  in  a  gamble 
with  death.      Might  the  big  guns  that  the   troops 


30  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

passed,  grim  hard  shadows  in  ravines  and  woods,, 
do  their  work  well  in  order  that  the  empty  ambu- 
lances at  rest  in  long  lines  might  have  little 
to  do! 

By  battalions  and  companies  the  marching 
columns  separated,  taking  by-roads  and  paths,  as 
their  officers  studied  their  maps  and  received  instruc- 
tions from  French  guides  who  knew  the  ground. 
By  daylight  they  were  dissipated  into  the  landscape. 
The  hornets  were  in  their  hives;  they  would  swarm 
as  dawn  broke  to  the  thunders  of  the  artillery.  At- 
tacks were  always  at  dawn;  and  dawn  had  taken  on 
a  new  meaning  to  us  since  the  morning  of  July  18th, 
when  our  ist  and  2nd  Divisions,  in  the  company  of 
crack  French  divisions,  had  started  the  first  of  the 
counter-offensives. 

The  success  of  Saint-Mihiel  had  developed  corps 
staffs  which  must  now  direct  the  Meuse-Argonne, 
while  others  took  over  the  arrangements  at  Saint- 
Mihiel.  Major-General  Hunter  Liggett,  pioneer  of 
corps  commanders,  with  the  First  Corps  was  to  be  on 
the  left;  Major-General  George  H.  Cameron,  with 
the  Fifth  Corps  in  the  center;  and  Major-General 
Robert  L.  Bullard,  with  the  Third  Corps  on  the 
right.  Groups  of  officers  making  a  pilgrimage  in 
automobiles  to  the  new  sector  were  to  be  the 
"  brains"  of  the  coming  attack;  for  our  corps  com- 
mand was  an  administrative  unit  which  took  over  the 


INTO  LINE  FOR  ATTACK  31 

direction  of  a  different  set  of  divisions  from  those 
under  it  at  Saint-Mihiel. 

The  corps  staffs  had  only  four  or  five  days  for 
their  staff  preparations  for  the  battle.  It  was  Army 
Headquarters  in  the  town  hall  of  Souilly  which  set 
the  army  objective,  the  corps  limits,  and  the  tactical 
direction  of  the  attack  as  a  whole,  while  the  corps 
set  the  divisional  limits  and  objectives  to  accord 
with  the  army  objective.  At  our  call  we  had  French 
experience  of  the  sector,  and  in  this  war  of  maps 
we  had  maps.  Our  prevision  in  this  respect  was 
excellent.  The  French  furnished  us  with  millions  of 
maps  in  the  course  of  the  war;  we  had  our  own  map- 
printing  presses  at  Langres;  and  we  had  movable 
presses  in  the  field  for  printing  maps  which  gave  the 
results  of  the  latest  observations  of  the  enemy's  de- 
fenses. A  snowstorm  of  maps  descended  upon  our 
army,  and  still  the  cry  was  for  more.  Not  only 
battalion  and  company,  but  platoon  and  even  squad 
commanders  needed  these  large-scale  backgrounds 
marked  with  their  parts. 

Yet  maps  have  their  limitations.  They  may  show 
the  ground  in  much  detail,  but,  even  when  the  blue 
diagrams  and  symbols  are  supposed  up  to  date,  not 
the  bushes  where  the  enemy's  machine-gun  nests  are 
hidden,  or  what  the  enemy  has  done  overnight  in 
the  way  of  defenses.  Nor  are  maps  plummets  into 
human  psychology.     Even  when  they  have  located 


32  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

machine-gun  nests  they  cannot  say  whether  the  gun- 
ners who  man  them  will  yield  easily  or  will  fight  to 
the  death.  If  the  British  on  the  Somme,  after 
months  of  preparation  and  study  of  the  defenses  of 
the  sector,  had  more  elaborate  directions  for  their 
units  than  we,  it  does  not  mean  that,  considering  its 
inexperience,  our  staff  did  not  accomplish  wonders. 

Our  corps  commanders  may  have  known  their 
division  commanders  in  time  of  peace,  but  they  had 
never  been  their  superiors  in  action  of  any  kind. 
Their  artillery  groupings  and  aviation  arrangements 
included  French  units  as  well  as  their  own.  There 
was  no  time  for  considering  niceties  in  dispositions. 
Division  commanders  who  had  to  arrange  the  details 
of  their  cooperation  had  never  served  together. 
They  had  scores  of  problems,  due  to  the  haste  of 
their  mobilization,  to  consider;  for  the  burden  of 
apprehension  that  pressed  them  close  was  of  appre- 
hension lest  they  should  not  be  up  on  time.  They 
and  their  officers  went  over  the  ground  at  the  front, 
but  they  had  not  the  time  to  make  the  thorough 
observation  that  any  painstaking  and  energetic  di- 
vision commander  would  have  preferred. 

A  division  with  all  its  artillery,  machine-guns,  and 
transport  is  a  ponderous  column  in  movement,  with 
every  part  having  its  regulation  place.  One  day  in 
one  set  of  villages  and  the  next  in  another,  the  com- 
munication    of    orders     and     requirements     down 


INTO  LINE  FOR  ATTACK  33 

through  all  the  branches  is  difficult,  and  the  more 
so  when  you  are  short  of  dispatch  riders,  and  there 
is  a  limit  to  what  can  be  done  over  the  field  tele- 
phone. The  unexpected  demand  for  wires  for  our 
second  great  offensive  must  not  find  the  signal  corps 
unprepared;  or  a  people  as  dependent  on  telephones 
and  telegraph  as  we  are,  and  so  accustomed  to  hav- 
ing them  materialize  on  request,  would  have  been 
helpless  in  making  war.  The  deepest  tactical  con- 
cern was,  of  course,  the  coordination  of  the  artillery 
with  the  infantry  advance.  It  is  only  a  difference  of 
a  hundred  yards'  range,  as  we  all  know,  between 
putting  your  shells  among  your  own  men  instead  of 
the  enemy's. 

Reliable  communication  from  the  infantry  to  the 
aviator  and  his  reliable  report  of  his  observations  to 
the  artillery  and  infantry  is  one  of  the  complicated 
features  in  that  team-play,  which,  in  the  game  of 
death,  needs  all  the  finesse  of  professional  baseball, 
a  secret  service,  and  a  political  machine,  plus  the 
requisite  poise,  despite  poor  food  and  short  hours  of 
sleep,  for  worthily  leading  men  in  battle.  Some  di- 
visions that  went  into  this  action  had  not  yet  received 
their  artillery;  or  again  their  artillery  arrived  from 
the  training  camp,  where  the  guns  had  just  been 
received,  barely  in  time  to  go  into  position,  so  that 
an  inexperienced  artillery  commander  reported  to 
an  inexperienced  division  commander  with  whom  he 


34  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

had  never  served.  There  were  batteries  without 
horses,  which  the  horses  of  other  batteries  pulled 
into  position  after  they  had  brought  up  their  own. 
Battery  commanders  received  their  table  of  bar- 
rages and  their  objectives  of  fire,  and,  without  regis- 
tering, had  to  trust  to  observation  by  men  untried  in 
battle  or  by  aviators  who  had  never  before  observed 
in  a  big  operation.  Aviators  had  been  trained  to 
expect  the  infantry  to  put  out  panels,  and  they  might 
say  that  the  infantry  did  not  show  their  panels,  while 
the  infantry  would  deny  the  charge.  Such  things 
had  happened  before.  They  would  happen  this 
time.  They  happen  to  the  most  veteran  of  armies, 
whose  long  experience,  however,  may  have  an  ex- 
cellent substitute  in  other  qualities  which  we  had  in 
plenitude,  as  we  shall  see. 

All  our  own  guns  were  of  French  make,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  howitzers.  The  gun-producing 
power  of  the  French  arsenals  supplying  us  with  our 
artillery  and  our  machine-guns — the  Brownings  were 
only  just  beginning  to  arrive — in  addition  to  supply- 
ing all  their  own  forces  over  the  long  front  of  their 
offensive  was  one  of  the  marvels  of  the  war  and  an 
important  factor  in  victory.  The  majority  of  our 
planes  were  also  of  French  make:  not  until  August 
had  the  Liberty  motors  begun  to  arrive.  The 
French  had  supplied  us  with  additional  aviation  and 
tanks,  as  well  as  artillery,  from  their  own  army;  but 


INTO  LINE  FOR  ATTACK  35 

much  of  this  was  new.  All  the  Allies,  indeed,  were 
robbing  their  training  camps  for  the  supreme  effort 
that  was  about  to  be  made  from  the  Meuse  to  the 
Channel. 

While  the  public,  which  thinks  of  aviation  in  terms 
of  combat,  admired  the  exploits  of  the  aces  in  bring- 
ing down  enemy  planes,  which  they  looked  for  in 
the  communiques,  the  army  was  thinking  of  the 
value  of  the  work  of  the  observers,  whose  heroism 
in  running  the  gamut  of  fire  from  air  and  earth  in 
order  to  bring  back  information  might  change  the 
fate  of  battles.  Training  for  combat,  perhaps,  more 
nearly  approximated  service  conditions  than  training 
for  observation.  A  fighting  aviator,  with  natural 
born  courage,  audacity,  and  coolness,  who  gees  out 
determinedly  to  bring  down  his  man,  makes  the  ace. 
These  qualities  were  never  lacking  in  our  fliers. 
They  went  after  their  men  and  got  them,  in  a 
record  of  successes  which  was  not  the  least  of  the 
honors  which  our  army  won  in  France.  The  ob- 
server had  no  public  praise;  he  was  always  the  butt 
of  the  complaint  that  he  did  not  bring  enough  in- 
formation, or  that  he  brought  inaccurate  informa- 
tion. His  complex  responsibilities  were  singularly 
dependent  upon  that  experience  which  comes  only 
from  practice. 

Instead  of  applying  the  lessons  of  Saint-Mihiel  at 
leisure,  as  we  had  hoped,  to  the  whole  army,  we  had 


36  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

to  apply  them  on  the  run  in  the  rapid  concentration 
of  divisions  which  had  not  been  at  Saint-Mihiel. 
Yet  the  supreme  thing  was  not  schooling.  It  was  a 
seemingly  superhuman  task  in  speed.  It  was  to  have 
the  infantry  up  on  time  even  if  the  other  units 
were  limping.  In  this  we  succeeded.  On  the  night 
of  September  24th,  from  the  Meuse  to  the  Forest's 
western  edge  every  division  was  in  position.  We 
had  kept  faith  with  Marshal  Foch's  orders.  We 
were  ready  to  go  "  over  the  top." 

The  Marshal  postponed  the  attack  for  another 
day.  Rumor  gave  the  reason  that  the  French 
Fourth  Army  was  not  ready;  possibly  the  real 
reason,  or  at  least  a  contributory  reason,  was  in 
the  canniness  of  such  an  old  hand  at  offensives  as 
Marshal  Foch.  Ours  was  a  new  army  under  enor- 
mous pressure.  Veteran  armies  were  always  asking, 
at  the  last  moment,  for  more  time  in  which  to  com- 
plete their  preparations  before  attacking.  Possibly 
the  Marshal  had  set  the  25th  as  the  date  with  a 
view  to  forcing  our  effort  under  spur  of  the  calendar, 
while  he  looked  forward  to  granting  the  inevitable 
request  for  delay.  At  all  events  the  respite  was 
most  welcome.  Our  staff  had  time  for  further  con- 
ferences and  attention  to  their  arrangements  for  sup- 
plies, and  our  combat  troops  a  breathing  spell  which 
gave  their  officers  another  day  in  which  to  study  the 
positions  they  were  to  storm. 


INTO  LINE  FOR  ATTACK  37 

When  I  considered  all  the  digging  necessary  for 
making  the  gun  positions,  or  had  even  a  cursory 
view  of  the  parks  of  divisional  transport,  of  the 
reserves  crowded  in  villages  and  woods,  of  the  am- 
munition trains,  and  of  the  busy  corps  and  division 
headquarters,  I  wondered  if  it  were  possible  that  the 
Germans  could  not  have  been  apprised  that  a  con- 
centration was  in  progress.  Not  only  did  pocket 
lamps  flash  like  fireflies  from  the  hands  of  those  who 
used  them  thoughtlessly,  but  despite  precautions 
careless  drivers  turned  on  motor  lights,  and  some 
rolling  kitchen  was  bound  to  let  out  a  flare  of  sparks, 
while  the  locomotives  running  in  and  out  at  railheads 
showed  streams  of  flames  from  their  stacks,  and  here 
and  there  fires  were  unwittingly  started.  An  aviator 
riding  the  night,  as  he  surveyed  the  shadowy  land- 
scape, could  not  miss  these  manifestations  of  activity. 
If  he  shut  off  his  engine  he  might  hear  above  the  low 
thunder  of  transport  the  roar  of  the  tanks  advancing 
into  position,  of  the  heavy  caterpillar  tractors  draw- 
ing big  guns.  When  the  air  was  clear  and  the  wind 
favorable,  the  increasing  volume  of  sound  directed 
toward  the  front  must  have  been  borne  to  sharp  ears 
on  the  other  side  of  No  Man's  Land.  All  this  I 
may  mention  again,  without  reference  to  observa- 
tions by  spies  within  our  lines. 

On  our  side,  we  might  try  to  learn  if  the  enemy 
knew  of  our  coming,  and  how  much  he  knew.     A 


38  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

thin  fringe  of  French  had  remained  in  the  fronts 
line  trenches,  with  our  men  in  place  behind  them. 
Thus  our  voices  of  different  timbre,  speaking  the 
English  tongue  in  regions  where  only  French  had 
been  spoken,  might  not  be  heard  if  we  forgot  the 
rules  of  silence,  which  were  as  mandatory  by 
custom  as  in  a  church  or  a  library;  and  besides,  if 
the  Germans  made  a  raid  for  information  they 
would  not  take  American  prisoners.  They  did  make 
some  minor  raids,  capturing  Frenchmen  who,  per- 
haps unwittingly  when  wounded  or  in  the  reaction 
from  danger,  and  subject  to  an  intelligence  system 
skilled  in  humoring  and  indirect  catechism,  told  more 
than  they  thought  they  were  telling.  Information 
that  we  had  from  German  prisoners  left  no  doubt 
that  the  Germans  knew  at  least  that  the  Americans 
were  moving  into  the  sector,  but  did  not  expect  a 
powerful  offensive.  This,  as  we  had  anticipated, 
was  discounted  as  being  out  of  the  question  on  the 
heels  of  the  Saint-Mihiel  offensive.  Our  new  army, 
the  Germans  thought,  had  not  the  skill  or  the 
material  for  such  a  concentration,  even  if  we  had 
the  troops. 

In  our  demonstration  that  we  did  have  the  skill 
and  the  energy,  and  that  in  one  way  and  another  we 
were  able  to  secure  the  material  even  though  it 
were  inadequate,  we  were  peculiarly  American;  and 
we  were  most  significantly  American  in  the  adaptable 


INTO  LINE  FOR  ATTACK  39 

exercise  of  the  reserve  nervous  force  of  our  restless, 
dynamic  natures,  which  makes  us  wonderful  in  a 
race  against  time.  We  strengthen  our  optimism 
with  the  pessimism  which  spurs  our  ambition  to  ac- 
complishment by  its  self-criticism  that  is  never 
satisfied. 

On  all  hands  I  heard  complaints  by  officers  con- 
cerning lack  of  equipment,  of  personnel,  of  training, 
and  of  time.  But  no  one  could  spare  the  breath 
for  more  than  objurgations,  uttered  in  exclamatory 
emphasis,  which  eased  the  mind.  I  could  make  a 
chapter  out  of  these  railings.  Yet  if  I  implied  that 
the  unit,  whether  salvage  or  aviation,  hospital  or 
front-line  battalion,  tanks  or  signal  corps,  or  any 
other,  would  not  be  able  to  carry  out  its  part,  I  was 
assailed  with  a  burst  of  outraged  and  flaming  opti- 
mism. And  optimism  is  the  very  basis  of  the  psy- 
chologic formula  of  war.  Americans  have  it  by 
nature.  We  lean  forward  on  our  oars.  Optimism 
comes  to  us  from  the  conquest  of  a  continent. 
It  presides  at  the  birth  of  every  infant,  who  may  one 
day  be  president  of  the  United  States. 

Confidence  was  rock-ribbed  in  a  commander-in- 
chief's  square  jaw;  it  rang  out  in  voices  over  the 
telephone;  it  was  in  the  very  pulse-beats  of  the  wait- 
ing infantry;  it  shone  in  every  face,  however  weary. 
We  had  won  at  Chateau-Thierry;  we  had  won  at 
Saint-Mihiel;  we  should  win  again.     The  infantry 


4o  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

might  not  conceive  the  nature  of  the  defenses  or  of 
the  fire  they  might  have  to  encounter.  So  much  the 
better.  They  would  have  the  more  vim  in  "  driving 
through,"  said  the  staff. 

The  objectives  which  we  had  set  ourselves  on  that 
first  day,  after  the  conquest  of  the  first-line  fortifi- 
cations, which  we  took  for  granted,  were  a  tribute 
to  our  faith  in  Marshal  Foch's  own  optimism.  On 
the  first  day  we  were  striking  for  the  planets.  In 
our  second  and  third  days'  objectives  we  did  not 
hesitate  to  strike  for  the  stars.  This  plan  would 
give  us  the  more  momentum,  and  if  we  were  to  be 
stopped  it  would  carry  us  the  farther  before  we 
were.  Of  course  we  did  not  admit  that  we  might 
be  stopped.  If  we  were  not,  the  German  military 
machine  would  be  broken;  and  any  doubts  on  the 
part  of  generals  were  locked  fast  in  their  inner  con- 
sciousness, for  uttered  word  of  scepticism  was 
treason. 

On  the  night  of  the  25th,  when  all  the  guns  began 
the  preliminary  bombardment,  stretching  an  aurora 
from  the  hills  of  Verdun  into  Champagne,  our  secret 
was  out.  From  the  whirlwind  of  shells  into  his  posi- 
tions the  enemy  knew  that  we  were  coming  at  dawn. 
With  thousands  of  flashes  saluting  the  heavens  it  no 
longer  mattered  if  a  rolling  kitchen  sent  up  a 
shower  of  sparks  or  an  officer  inadvertently  turned 
the  gleam  of  his  pocket  flash  skyward.     Along  the 


INTO  LINE  FOR  ATTACK  41 

front  our  infantry  slipped  forward  into  the  place  of 
the  French  veterans,  who  came  marching  back  down 
the  roads. 

"  Gentlemen,"   said  the   French,   "  the   sector  is 
yours.    A  pleasant  morning  to  you !  " 


Ill 


NEW  AND  OLD  DIVISIONS 

A  military  machine  impossible  in  human  nature — Regular  tradi- 
tions— National  Guard  sentiment — National  Army  solidarity — 
Divisonal  pride — Our  first  six  divisions  unavailable  to  start  in 
the  Meuse-Argonne — British-trained  divisions — What  veteran 
divisions  would  have  known. 

The  Leavenworth  plan  was  to  harmonize  regulars, 
National  Guard,  and  National  Army  into  a  force  so 
homogeneous  that  flesh  and  blood  became  machin- 
ery, with  every  soldier,  squad,  platoon,  brigade,  and 
division  as  much  like  all  the  others  as  peas  in  a 
pod;  but  human  elements  older  than  the  Leaven- 
worth School,  which  had  given  soldiers  cheer  on 
the  march  and  fire  in  battle  from  the  days  of  the 
spear  to  the  days  of  the  quick-firer,  hampered  the 
practical  application  of  the  cold  professional  idea 
worked  out  in  conscientious  logic  in  the  academic 
cloister.  It  may  be  whispered  confidentially  that  all 
unconsciously  their  own  training  and  associations 
sometimes  made  the  inbred  and  most  natural  affec- 
tion of  the  Leavenworth  graduates  for  the  regulars 
subversive  of  the  very  principle  which  they  had  set 
out  to  practise  with  such  resolutely  expressed  im- 
partiality.   A  regular  felt  that  he  was  a  little  more 

42 


NEW  AND  OLD  DIVISIONS  43 

of  a  regular  if  he  were  serving  with  a  regular 
division. 

"  We're  not  having  any  of  this  good-as-you-are 
nonsense  in  this  regiment,"  said  its  Colonel,  talking 
to  a  fellow-classman  who  was  on  the  staff.  "  We're 
filled  up  with  reserve  officers  and  rookies, — but 
we're  regulars  nevertheless.  We've  started  right 
with  the  regular  idea — the  way  we  did  in  the  old 
— th  " — in  which  the  officers  had  served  together  as 
lieutenants. 

By  the  same  token  of  sentiment  and  association 
the  National  Guardsmen  remained  National  Guards- 
men. They  also  had  a  tradition.  If  they  were  not 
proud  of  it  they  would  be  unnatural  fighters.  While 
the  average  citizen  had  taken  no  interest  in  pre- 
paredness, except  in  the  abstraction  that  national  de- 
fense was  an  excellent  thing,  they  had  drilled  on 
armory  floors  and  attended  annual  encampments. 
Sometimes  the  average  citizen  had  spoken  of  them 
as  "  tin  soldiers  ";  and  they  were  conscious  perhaps 
of  a  certain  superciliousness  toward  them  on  the  part 
of  regular  officers.  Drawn  from  the  same  communi- 
ties, members  of  the  same  military  club  that  met  at 
the  armory,  they  already  had  their  pride  of  regiment 
and  of  company:  a  feeling  held  in  common  with 
Guardsmen  from  other  parts  of  the  country,  who 
belonged  to  the  same  service  from  the  same  motives. 
Should   that  old   Connecticut   or   Alabama   or   any 


44  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

other  regiment  with  a  Civil  War  record,  and,  per- 
haps, with  a  record  dating  from  the  Revolution, 
forget  its  old  number  because  it  was  given  a  new 
number,  or  its  own  armory,  because  it  went  to  a 
training  camp?  Relatives  and  friends,  who  bowed 
to  the  edict  of  military  uniformity  and  anonymity, 
would  still  think  of  it  as  their  home  regiment.  If 
Minneapolis  mixed  its  sons  with  St.  Paul's,  they 
would  still  be  sons  of  Minneapolis. 

While  all  volunteers  felt  that  they  were  entitled 
to  the  credit  of  offering  their  services  without  wait- 
ing on  the  call,  the  draft  men,  who  had  awaited  the 
call,  had  their  own  conviction  about  their  duty, 
which,  from  the  hour  when  they  walked  over  from 
the  railway  stations  to  the  camp,  gave  them  a  sense 
of  comradeship :  while  they  might  argue  that  it  was 
more  honor  to  found  than  to  follow  a  tradition. 
Their  parents,  sisters,  and  sweethearts  were  just  as 
fond,  and  their  friends  just  as  proud,  of  them  as 
they  had  been  in  the  Guard.  Aside  from  a  few  regu- 
lar superiors,  their  officers  were  graduates  of  the 
Officers'  Training  Camps,  who,  as  the  regulars  said, 
had  nothing  to  unlearn  and  were  subject  to  no  politi- 
cal associations.  Yes,  the  draft  men  considered 
themselves  as  the  national  army;  and  they  would  set 
a  standard  which  should  be  in  keeping  with  this 
distinction. 

All  the  men  assembled  in  any  home  cantonment, 


NEW  AND  OLD  DIVISIONS  45 

with  the  exception  of  the  regulars,  were  almost. in- 
variably from  the  same  part  of  the  country,  which 
gave  them  a  neighborhood  feeling.  The  doings  of 
that  cantonment  became  the  intimate  concern  of  the 
surrounding  region.  Its  chronicles  were  carried  in 
the  local  newspapers.  There  was  a  division  to  each 
cantonment;  and  in  France  the  fighting  unit  was  the 
division,  complete  in  all  its  branches, — artillery, 
machine-guns,  trench  mortars,  engineers,  hospital, 
signal  corps,  transport,  and  other  units.  As  a 
division  it  had  its  training  area;  as  a  division  it 
traveled,  went  into  battle,  and  was  relieved. 

Before  a  division  was  sent  to  France  its  men  were 
already  thinking  in  terms  of  their  division;  they  met 
the  men  of  no  other  division  unless  on  leave,  and 
met  them  in  France  only  in  passing,  or  on  the  left 
or  right  in  battle.  In  the  cantonment  the  division 
had  its  own  camp  newspaper,  its  own  sports,  its 
separate  life  on  the  background  of  the  community 
interest,  without  the  maneuvering  of  many  divisions 
together  on  the  European  plan  until  they  were  sent 
into  action  in  the  Saint-Mihiel  or  Meuse-Argonne 
offensive.  Each  division  commander  and  his  staff, 
who  were  regular  officers,  conspired  to  develop  a 
divisional  pride,  thereby,  in  a  sense,  humanly  defeat- 
ing the  regular  idea  of  making  out  of  American  citi- 
zens a  machine  which  could  be  anything  but  humanly 
American.     Within  the  division,  pride  of  company, 


46  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

of  battalion,  of  regiment,  was  instilled,  and  the  dif- 
ferent units  developed  rivalries  which  were  amalga- 
mated in  a  sense  of  rivalry  with  other  divisions. 

Every  cantonment  had  the  "  best "  division  in  the 
United  States  before  it  went  to  France,  where  ri- 
valry expressed  itself  on  the  battlefield.  The  record 
of  the  war  is  by  divisions.  Men  might  know  their 
division,  but  not  their  corps  commander.  Divisions 
might  not  vary  in  their  courage,  but  they  must  in  the 
amount  of  their  experience  and  in  the  quality  of  their 
leaders.  A  division  that  had  been  in  three  or  four 
actions  might  be  better  than  one  that  had  been  in 
ten;  but  a  division  that  had  not  been  in  a  single 
action  hardly  had  the  advantage  over  one  that  had 
been  in  several.  Our  four  pioneer  divisions,  which 
had  been  in  the  trenches  during  the  winter  of 
19 1 7-1 8  and  later  in  the  Chateau-Thierry  opera- 
tions, the  1st  (regulars),  and  the  2nd  (regulars  and 
marines),  and  the  26th  and  the  42nd  (both  National 
Guard),  were  all  at  Saint-Mihiel.  Their  units  were 
complete;  their  artillery  had  had  long  practice  with 
their  infantry;  they  had  had  long  training-ground 
experience  in  France,  had  known  every  kind  of 
action  in  modern  war,  and  had  kept  touch  under 
fire,  rather  than  in  school  instruction,  with  the  prog- 
ress of  tactics.  If  they  were  not  our  "best"  divi- 
sions, it  was  their  fault. 

Of  the  two  other  divisions  which  had  been  longest 


NEW  AND  OLD  DIVISIONS  47 

after  these  in  our  army  sector,  the  32nd  had  just 
finished  helping  Mangin  break  through  at  Juvigny, 
northwest  of  Soissons,  and  the  3rd  was  at  Saint- 
Mihiel.  These  six  formed  the  group  which  General 
Pershing  had  in  France  at  the  time  of  the  emergency 
of  the  German  offensive  in  March,  which  hastened 
our  program  of  troop  transport. 

Now  we  were  bringing  to  the  American  army 
five  of  the  divisions  which  had  been  trained  with 
the  British,  the  4th,  28th,  33rd,  35th,  and  77th. 
From  the  British  front  the  77th  had  gone  to  Lor- 
raine, whence  it  was  recalled  to  the  Chateau-Thierry 
theater.  The  4th  and  the  28th  were  ordered  from 
the  British  front,  after  the  third  German  offensive 
in  June,  to  stand  between  Paris  and  the  foe,  and 
then  participated,  along  with  the  77th,  in  the  coun- 
ter-offensive which  reduced  the  Marne  salient, — or 
as  the  French  call  it,  the  second  Battle  of  the  Marne, 
a  simple,  suggestive,  and  glorious  name.  Chateau- 
Thierry  had  thus  been  a  stage  in  passage  from  the 
British  to  the  American  sector,  and  the  call  for  the 
defense  of  Paris  had  been  serviceable  to  the  Ameri- 
can command  as  a  reason  for  detaching  American 
divisions,  which  the  British  had  trained,  from  Sir 
Douglas  Haig,  who,  as  he  is  Scotch,  was  none  the 
less  thriftily  desirous  of  retaining  them. 

The  33rd  Division,  remaining  at  the  British  front 
after  the  other  divisions  had  departed,  gained  ex- 


48  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

perience  in  offensive  operations,  as  we  know,  which 
approximated  that  of  the  others  at  Chateau-Thierry, 
when,  fighting  in  the  inspiring  company  of  the  Aus- 
tralians in  the  Somme  attacks  beginning  August  8th, 
the  Illinois  men  took  vital  positions  and  numerous 
prisoners  and  guns.  Though  these  four  divisions, 
the  4th,  28th,  33rd,  and  77th,  had  not  had  the  long 
experience  of  the  four  pioneer  divisions,  they  had 
had  their  "  baptism  of  fire  "  under  severe  conditions, 
they  knew  German  machine-gun  methods  from  close 
contact,  and  they  had  the  conviction  of  their  power 
from  having  seen  the  enemy  yield  before  their  deter- 
mined attacks.  To  Marshal  Foch  they  had  brought 
further  evidence  that  the  character  of  the  pioneer 
divisions  with  their  long  training  in  France  was  com- 
mon to  all  American  troops.  The  National  Guard 
divisions  which  had  arrived  late  in  France,  though 
they  had  been  filled  with  recruits,  had,  as  the  back- 
ground of  their  training  camp  experience  at  home, 
not  only  the  established  inheritance  of  their  organi- 
zation but  the  thankless  and  instructive  service  on 
the  Mexican  border,  where  for  many  months  they 
had  been  on  a  war  footing. 

According  to  European  standards  none  of  the 
divisions  in  the  first  shock  of  the  Meuse-Argonne 
battle  was  veteran,  of  course;  and  the  mission  given 
them  would  have  been  considered  beyond  their 
powers.     Indeed,  the  disaster  of  broken  units,  dis- 


NEW  AND  OLD  DIVISIONS  49 

persing  from  lack  of  tactical  skill,  once  they  were 
against  the  fortifications,  would  have  been  consid- 
ered inevitable.  A  veteran  or  "  shock  "  division  in 
the  European  sense — such  divisions  as  the  Euro- 
pean armies  used  for  major  attacks  and  difficult 
operations — would  have  had  a  superior  record  in 
four  years  of  war.  Its  survivors,  through  absorp- 
tion no  less  than  training,  would  have  developed  a 
craft  which  was  now  instinctive.  They  were  Euro- 
peans fighting  in  Europe ;  they  knew  their  enemy  and 
how  he  would  act  in  given  emergencies;  they  knew 
the  signs  which  showed  that  he  was  weakening  or 
that  he  was  going  to  resist  sturdily;  they  knew  how 
to  find  dead  spaces,  and  how  to  avoid  fire;  and  they 
had  developed  that  sense  of  team-play  which  adjusts 
itself  automatically  to  situations.  All  that  our  di- 
visions knew  of  these  things  they  had  learned  from 
schooling  or  in  one  or  two  battles.  We  had  the 
advantage  that  experience  had  not  hardened  our 
initiative  until  we  might  be  overcautious  on  some 
occasions. 

The  battle  order  of  our  divisions  for  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  battle  was  not  based  on  the  tactical  adapta- 
tion of  each  unit  to  the  task  on  its  front.  We  must 
be  satisfied  with  placing  a  division  in  line  at  a  point 
somewhere  between  the  Meuse  and  the  Forest's 
edge  where  transportation  most  favored  its  arrival 
on  time.    One  division  was  as  good  as  another  in  a 


5o  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

battle  arranged  in  such  haste.  The  French  Fourth 
Army  was  to  attack  on  the  west  of  the  Argonne 
Forest;  on  its  right  a  regiment  of  the  92nd  (col- 
ored) Division,  National  Army,  with  colored  offi- 
cers, was  to  form  the  connecting  link  between  the 
French  and  the  American  forces.  For  men  with  no 
experience  under  heavy  fire,  who  were  not  long  ago 
working  in  the  cotton  fields  and  on  the  levees  of  the 
South,  this  was  a  trying  assignment,  which  would 
have  tested  veterans.  Never  before  had  colored 
men  under  colored  officers  gone  against  a  powerful 
trench  system.  All  the  British  and  French  colored 
troops  had  white  officers,  and  our  other  colored  divi- 
sion, the  93rd,  which  was  attached  to  the  French 
Army  through  the  summer  and  fall  of  19 18,  had 
white  officers. 

We  come  now  to  our  divisions  in  place  on  the 
night  of  September  25th,  with  whom  will  ever  rest 
the  honor  of  having  stormed  the  fortifications. 
When  I  consider  each  one's  part  I  should  like  to 
write  it  in  full.  I  shall  mention  them  individually 
when  that  best  suits  the  purpose  of  my  chronicle, 
and  at  other  times  I  shall  describe  the  common 
characteristics  of  their  fighting:  in  either  case  mind- 
ful of  the  honor  they  did  us  all  as  Americans. 


IV 


THE  ORDER  OF  BATTLE 

The  Metropolitan  Division  in  the  Argonne  proper — Six  weeks 
without  rest — Direct  attack  impossible  in  the  Forest — Similar 
history  of  the  Keystone  Division — Pennsylvania  pride — Its 
mission  the  "  scalloping "  of  the  Forest  edge — The  stalwart 
men  of  the  35th  Division — Storming  the  Aire  heights — Fine 
spirit  of  the  Pacific  Slope  Division — A  five-mile  advance 
projected  for  the  Ohio  Division — North  and  South  in  the  79th 
Division — Never  in  line  before,  it  was  to  strike  deepest. 

Three  National  Army  divisions  were  to  be  in  the 
initial  attack.  It  was  a  far  cry  for  the  men  who  a 
year  before  had  tumbled  into  the  training  camps  at 
home,  without  knowledge  of  the  manual  of  arms  or 
of  the  first  elements  of  army  etiquette  and  discipline, 
to  the  march  of  trained  divisions  forward  into  line 
of  battle  in  France.  On  the  extreme  left  of  the  line 
was  the  Liberty  Division,  from  New  York  City. 
The  metropolitans  were  given  the  task  of  taking  not 
a  town,  but  a  forest,  with  which  their  name  will  be 
as  long  connected  as  with  our  largest  city.  Its  left 
flank  on  the  western  edge  of  the  Argonne  Forest 
and  its  right  on  the  eastern,  the  77th  had  a  long 
divisional  front  of  over  four  miles;  but  it  would 
have  been  unsatisfied  if  it  had  had  to  share  the 
Forest.    The  Forest  was  its  very  own.    The  public 

51 


52  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

at  home  seemed  to  have  the  idea  that  the  whole 
battle  was  fought  there.  If  it  had  been,  the  77th 
would  have  had  to  share  credit  with  twenty  other 
divisions,  which  had  equally  stiff  fighting  in  patches 
of  woods  which  were  equally  dense  even  if  they 
were  not  called  forests. 

If  the  Forest  were  stripped  bare  of  its  trees,  it 
would  present  a  great  ridge-like  bastion  cut  by 
ravines,  with  irregular  hills  and  slopes  of  a  char- 
acter which,  even  though  bald,  would  have  been  for- 
midable in  defense.  Its  timber  had  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  the  park-like  conception  of  a  European 
forest,  in  which  the  ground  opens  between  tree 
trunks  in  lines  as  regular  as  in  an  orchard.  If  the 
Argonne  had  been  without  roads,  the  Red  Indians 
might  have  been  as  much  at  home  in  its  depths  as 
in  the  primeval  Adirondacks.  Underbrush  grew  as 
freely  as  in  second-growth  woods  in  our  New  Eng- 
land or  Middle  States;  the  leaves  had  not  yet  begun 
to  fall  from  the  trees. 

It  had  not  been  until  September  15th  that  the  77th 
had  been  relieved  from  the  operations  in  the 
Chateau-Thierry  region.  A  new  division,  fresh 
from  training  at  the  British  front  and  in  Lorraine, 
it  had  gone  into  line  in  August  to  hold  the  bank  of 
the  Vesle  against  continuous  sniping,  gassing,  and 
artillery  fire;  and  later,  after  holding  the  bottom  of 
a  valley  with  every  avenue  of  approach  shelled  in 


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THE  ORDER  OF  BATTLE  S3 

nerve-racking  strain,  it  had  shown  the  mettle  of 
the  Americans  of  the  tenements  by  fighting  its  way- 
forward  for  ten  days  toward  the  Aisne  Canal.  It 
had  been  in  action  altogether  too  long  according  to 
accepted  standards,  though  this  seems  only  to  have 
tempered  its  steel  for  service  in  the  Argonne. 

Ordinarily  a  new  division  would  not  only  have 
been  given  time  to  recover  from  battle  exhaustion, 
which  is  so  severe  because  in  the  excitement  men  are 
carried  forward  by  sheer  will  beyond  all  normal  re- 
actions to  fatigue,  but  it  would  have  been  given  time 
for  drill  and  for  applying  the  lessons  of  its  first  im- 
portant battle  experience.  The  value  of  this  is  the 
same  to  a  division  as  a  holiday  at  the  mountains  or 
the  seashore  to  a  man  on  the  edge  of  a  nervous 
breakdown.  He  recovers  his  physical  vitality,  and 
has  leisure  to  see  himself  and  his  work  in  per- 
spective. 

Instead  of  knowing  the  relaxation  and  the  joy  of 
settling  down  in  billets  and  receiving  the  attention  of 
the  "  Y  "  and  other  ministrants,  of  having  plenty 
of  time  to  write  letters  home,  and  of  receiving  from 
home  letters  that  were  not  more  than  six  weeks  old, 
the  men  of  the  77th  had  long  marches  to  make 
through  ruined  country,  and  were  then  switched 
about,  in  indescribably  uncomfortable  travel,  on  the 
way  to  the  Argonne.  The  division  commander 
made  no  complaint  on  this  score;  but  it  was  a  fact 


54  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

to  be  taken  into  consideration.  The  77th  was  short 
of  transport;  its  horses  were  worn  down.  Yet, 
faithful  to  orders,  its  artillery  as  well  as  its  infantry 
was  up  on  the  night  of  the  24th.  Owing  to  the 
length  of  its  front,  all  four  infantry  regiments  were 
put  into  line,  which  meant  that  there  could  be  no 
relief  for  any  units  after  they  reached  their  destina- 
tion. 

We  admire  hardy  frontiersmen,  of  whom  we  ex- 
pect such  endurance;  but  what  of  these  city-dwellers, 
these  men  from  the  factories  and  offices,  short  of 
stature  and  slight  of  body?  Who  that  had  seen 
them  before  they  entered  a  training  camp  would 
have  thought  that  they  could  be  equal  to  carrying 
their  heavy  packs  on  long  marches  and  undergoing 
the  physical  strain  of  battle?  Their  fortitude  was 
not  due  altogether  to  good  food  and  the  healthy 
regime  of  disciplined  camps;  it  was  the  spirit  of 
their  desire  to  prove  that  they  were  the  "  best " 
division  because  they  were  the  "  Liberty  Division." 
Their  hearty,  resolute  commander,  Major-General 
Robert  Alexander,  was  justly  proud  of  them  and 
believed  in  them;  and  they  had  excellent  officers, 
who  held  them  up  by  example  and  discipline  to  high 
standards. 

Faith  in  the  impregnability  of  the  Forest,  from 
ancient  times  a  bulwark  for  which  armies  competed, 
had  not  led  the  Germans  to  neglect  any  detail  in 


THE  ORDER  OF  BATTLE  55 

improving  its  natural  defenses.  In  that  area  where 
for  four  years  the  French  and  the  Germans  had 
stared  across  No  Man's  Land  at  each  other,  the 
reasons  for  the  enforced  stalemate  were  almost  as 
obvious  as  those  for  the  truce  between  the  whale 
and  the  elephant.  Either  army  had  at  its  back  the 
cover  of  woodland,  while  the  slopes  about  the 
trenches  formed  a  belt  of  shell-craters  littered  with 
trunks  of  trees.  Any  attempt  to  take  the  forest  by 
frontal  attack  must  have  been  madness.  Action  in 
front  must  be  only  an  incident  of  pressure,  and  con- 
fined to  "  mopping  up,"  as  action  on  either  side 
forced  the  enemy's  withdrawal  from  a  cross-fire. 
This  was  bound  to  be  our  plan,  as  the  enemy  fore- 
saw; we  shall  see  that  he  governed  himseljf  accord- 
ingly. 

The  28th  Division,  which  had  been  on  the  left  of 
the  77th  in  the  advance  to  the  Aisne,  was  again  on 
its  left.  These  had  really  been  the  first  two  Ameri- 
can divisions  to  fight  side  by  side  under  an  Ameri- 
can corps  command,  that  of  Major-General  Robert 
L.  Bullard.  In  the  enterprise  that  they  were  now 
undertaking  they  had  need  of  every  detail  of  team- 
play  that  they  had  learned. 

Some  elements  of  the  28th,  which  was  then  just 
arriving  in  the  Chateau-Thierry  region,  had  been 
in  action  against  the  fifth  German  offensive;  then 
it  had  been  pushed  across  the  Marne,  where  it  had 


56  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

been  put  in  by  brigades  and  moved  about  under 
harassing  circumstances  in  the  ensuing  counter- 
offensive.  Later,  having  proved  its  worthiness  for 
the  honor,  as  an  intact  division  it  had  taken  over 
from  the  exhausted  32nd  on  the  Vesle.  Practically, 
from  July  15  th  until  it  went  to  the  Argonne  it  had 
had  no  rest.  It  had  held  not  only  the  town  of 
Fismes  on  the  bank  of  the  Vesle,  but  the  exposed 
position  of  the  little  town  of  Fismettes  on  the  other 
side  of  the  river,  during  that  period  when  the  Ger- 
mans were  inclined  to  make  a  permanent  stand 
there  if  their  digging,  their  sniping,  and  their  bat- 
tering artillery  fire,  showered  from  the  heights  upon 
the  28th  and  the  77th  in  the  valley,  were  any 
criterion.  In  the  subsequent  advance  to  the  Aisne, 
and  later  in  the  transfer  to  the  Argonne,  the  division 
had  to  submit  to  the  same  kind  of  irregularities  and 
discomfort  as  the  77th,  and  to  suffer  in  the  same 
way  for  want  of  adequate  transport  and  of  leisure 
for  studying  its  latest  battle  lessons  for  use  in  the 
next  battle. 

There  is  a  general  idea  that  such  populous  states 
as  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  lack  state  pride, 
particularly  in  the  sense  of  the  southern  states;  but 
any  state,  whose  National  Guardsmen  were  numer- 
ous enough  to  form  a  complete  division  on  the  new 
war  footing,  had  the  advantage  of  the  unity  of  senti- 
ment of  the  old  family,  which  does  not  have  to  in- 


THE  ORDER  OF  BATTLE  57 

elude  strangers  at  its  board.  The  2  8th's  deeds  were 
Pennsylvania's.  It  stood  proudly  and  exclusively  for 
Pennsylvania  with  her  wealth  and  prosperity  and  all 
her  numerous  colleges,  large  and  small,  from  Alle- 
gheny in  the  northwest  to  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania. The  men  were  evidently  capable  of  eating 
three  and  four  square  meals  a  day,  and  they  looked 
as  if  they  were  used  to  having  them  when  they  were 
at  home. 

"What  about  politics?"  the  critic  always  asks 
about  any  National  Guard  division.  If  there  were 
politics  in  the  28th  it  was  so  mixed  up  with  march- 
ing and  fighting — and  the  men  of  the  28th  were 
always  doing  one  or  the  other  when  I  saw  them — • 
that  it  was  unrecognizable  to  one  so  unused  to  poli- 
tics as  the  writer.  Certainly,  it  was  a  good  kind  of 
politics,  I  should  say,  in  that  Pennsylvania  had  taken 
a  downright  interest  in  her  National  Guard,  which 
was  now  bearing  fruit.  The  2  8th's  commander, 
Major-General  Charles  H.  Muir,  was  a  man  of 
equanimity  and  force,  who  had  the  strength  of  char- 
acter, on  occasion,  to  stand  up  to  an  Army  staff  when 
he  knew  that  its  orders  were  impracticable.  The 
staff  respected  him  for  his  confidence  in  the  judg- 
ment of  the  man  on  the  spot. 

The  28th's  losses  both  in  officers  and  in  men  in 
that  excoriating  progress  from  the  Vesle  to  the 
Aisne  had  been  the  price  of  a  gallantry  which  was 


58  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

a  further  reproof  to  the  scepticism  in  certain  quar- 
ters about  the  National  Guard.  Officers  who  had 
been  killed  or  wounded  had  been  replaced  by  young 
men  who  were  often  from  the  training  camps  though 
not  Pennsylvanians;  and  in  the  fierce  illumination  of 
battle  much  had  been  learned  about  the  qualities  of 
the  survivors.  Some  of  these  who  had  hitherto  been 
called  politicians  had  entirely  overcome  the  asper- 
sion. Others  who  had  worn  themselves  out  physi- 
cally might  be  given  a  period  of  recuperation  even  if 
the  division  had  none.  The  28th  had  been  indeed 
battle-tried  in  all  that  the  word  means.  If  it  could 
have  had  two  weeks  before  the  Meuse-Argonne  in 
which  to  digest  its  lessons,  this  would  have  been  only 
fair  to  it  as  a  division:  though  probably  its  deter- 
mination would  have  been  no  stronger. 

The  2  8th's  front  was  from  the  edge  of  the  Forest 
on  its  left  to  the  village  of  Boureuilles  on  its  right. 
Astride  the  Aire  River  it  linked  the  Forest  with  the 
main  battle-line.  While  maintaining  its  uniformity 
of  advance  on  its  right,  its  left  had  the  same  difficult 
maneuver  in  "  scalloping  "  the  eastern  edge  of  the 
Forest  as  the  French  in  "  scalloping  "  the  western 
edge.  This  meant  that  the  28th  must  storm  the 
wooded  escarpments  which  the  Forest  throws  out  on 
the  western  side  of  the  Aire.  On  the  eastern  side  of 
the  valley  were  heights  which  interlocked  with  the 
escarpments.    As  one  Guardsman  said,  the  division 


THE  ORDER  OF  BATTLE  59 

had  a  worse  job  than  a  Democrat  running  for  gov- 
ernor of  Pennsylvania  in  an  off  year  for  Democrats. 

Now  the  28th  could  not  succeed  unless  the  division 
on  its  right  took  the  heights  on  the  eastern  side  of 
the  Aire.  If  the  28th  failed,  then  the  whole  turning 
movement  of  the  Army  offensive  toward  the  main 
series  of  heights  which  formed  the  crest  of  the 
whale-back  was  endangered.  On  the  right  of  the 
28th  was  the  35th  Division,  National  Guard  from 
Kansas  and  Missouri,  which  must  offer  the  courage 
and  vigor  which  is  bred  in  their  home  country  in 
place  of  the  battle  experience  which  had  been  the 
fortune  of  the  Pennsylvanians.  Major-General 
William  M.  Wright  had  been  the  first  commander 
of  the  35th.  He  was  a  man  of  the  world,  most 
human  in  his  feeling  and  sound  in  his  principles  of 
war,  with  a  personality  which  was  particularly  ef- 
fective with  troops  of  sturdy  individualistic  char- 
acter, who  were  unaccustomed  by  their  tradition  of 
self-reliant  independence  of  thought  to  the  arbitrary 
system  which  a  regular  army  develops  in  the  han- 
dling of  recruits  in  time  of  peace.  Leonard  Wood 
had  the  same  class  of  men  from  the  same  region  in 
the  89th,  which  Wright  later  led  in  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  battle  with  brilliant  results. 

Soon  after  the  35th  arrived  behind  the  British 
lines,  Wright's  accepted  knowledge  of  regular  army 
personnel  and  his  capacity  for  inspiring  harmonious 


60  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

effort  in  any  group  of  subordinates  led  General 
Pershing  to  set  him  the  task  of  organizing  corps 
staffs,  among  them  the  Fifth,  which  was  to  develop 
exemplary  traditions.  Major-General  Peter  E. 
Traub,  a  scholarly  soldier,  fully  equipped  in  the 
theories  of  war,  succeeded  him  in  command  of  the 
35th.  Traub's  brigade  of  the  26th  Division  had 
received  at  Seicheprey  the  shock  of  the  first  attack 
in  force  that  the  Germans  had  made  against  our 
troops,  where  the  quality  which  the  young  officers 
and  men  had  shown  in  face  of  a  surprise  by  over- 
whelming numbers,  and  their  prompt  recovery  of 
the  town  without  waiting  on  superior  orders,  had 
reflected  credit  on  their  brigade. 

The  physique  and  the  good  humor  of  the  men  of 
the  35th  had  been  the  admiration  of  everybody  who 
had  seen  them  after  their  arrival  in  the  British  area. 
The  Guardsmen  of  Kansas  had  a  fine  tradition 
linked  up  with  the  career  of  Frederick  Funston,  who 
was  in  the  fullest  sense  what  is  known  as  a  born 
soldier.  He  was  a  combination  of  fire  and  steel; 
of  human  impulse  and  inherent  common  sense.  His 
initiative  was  in  tune  with  that  of  his  Kansans. 
Through  the  authority  of  their  faith  in  him  he  ap- 
plied stern  discipline. 

With  its  left  on  Boureuilles  and  its  right  on 
Vauquois,  the  35th  must  storm  the  heights  of  the 
eastern  wall  of  the  Aire  under  flanking  artillery  and 


THE  ORDER  OF  BATTLE  6i 

machine-gun  fire  from  the  escarpments  of  the  Forest, 
unless  these  were  promptly  conquered  by  the  28th. 
No  finer-looking  soldiers  ever  went  into  action. 
Their  eagerness  was  in  keeping  with  their  vitality. 
Compared  to  the  little  men  of  the  77th,  who  were 
overburdened  with  heavy  packs,  they  were  giants  of 
the  type  which  carried  packs  of  double  the  army 
weight  over  the  Chilcoot  Pass  in  the  Klondike  rush. 
Their  inheritance  gave  them  not  only  the  strength 
but  the  incentive  of  pioneers.  Whoever  had  the 
leading  and  shaping  of  such  a  body  of  American 
citizens  had  a  responsibility  which  went  with  a  glori- 
ous opportunity.  The  stronger  the  men  of  a  divi- 
sion, the  abler  the  officers  they  require  to  be  worthy 
of  their  potentiality.  Given  the  battle  experience 
of  the  77th,  under  a  Pershing,  a  Wood,  a  Bullard, 
a  Summerall,  or  a  Hines,  and  a  group  of  officers  as 
such  a  leader  would  have  developed,  the  work  of  the 
35th  would  never  have  become  a  subject  for  discus- 
sion: but  we  shall  come  to  this  later  on. 

On  the  right  of  the  35th  we  had  the  91st, 
National  Army  from  the  Pacific  Coast,  as  the  left 
division  of  the  Fifth  or  center  Corps,  with  its  front 
from  Vauquois  to  Avocourt.  Its  commander  was 
Major-General  William  H.  Johnston,  a  redoubt- 
able fighter  and  vigorous  for  his  years,  as  anyone 
could  see  at  a  glance.  There  was  no  question  as  to 
the  character  of  his  men,  who  were  six  thousand 


62  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

miles  from  home.  Their  physique  was  as  good  as 
that  of  the  35th,  as  you  know  if  you  know  the  region 
where  they  were  called  to  service  by  the  draft. 
Never  before  under  fire,  they  were  to  fight  their 
way  through  woods  by  a  frontal  attack,  and  then 
under  the  enemy's  observation  into  an  open  ravine, 
and  on  through  that  up  forbidding  slopes.  An  ap- 
pealing sentiment  attached  to  this  division  from  the 
other  side  of  the  continent,  no  less  than  to  the  77th, 
from  which  it  differed  in  its  personnel  as  the  Pacific 
Slope  differs  from  the  streets  of  New  York.  There 
were  city  men  in  its  ranks,  but  not  in  the  sense  of  city 
men  from  New  York;  and  there  were  ranchmen,  and 
lumbermen,  and  those  among  them  who  spoke 
broken  English  were  not  from  tailors'  benches. 

On  the  right  of  the  91st  was  the  37th,  Ohio 
National  Guard  under  Major-General  Charles  S. 
Farnsworth,  a  regular  officer  of  high  repute,  who 
was  to  take  the  division  through  its  terrific  experi- 
ence in  the  Meuse-Argonne  and  afterward  to  Bel- 
gium. Why  so  excellent  a  division  as  the  37th 
should  not  have  been  earlier  in  France  may  be  re- 
ferred to  geography,  which  gave  an  advantage  to 
National  Guard  divisions  from  the  seaboard  states. 
The  37th  had  waited  and  drilled  long  for  its  chance, 
which  now  came  in  generous  measure.  After  break- 
ing through  the  trench  system  it  must  storm  by  fron- 
tal attack,  for  a  depth  of  three  miles,  woods  as  thick 


THE  ORDER  OF  BATTLE  63 

as  the  Argonne ;  and  this  was  only  a  little  more  than 
half  the  distance  set  for  a  single  day's  objective. 
Therefore,  without  previous  trial  in  grand  offen- 
sives, it  was  assigned  a  mission  which  would  ordi- 
narily have  been  supposed  to  be  disastrous  against 
even  a  moderate  defense.  The  37th  was  without  its 
own  artillery,  but  it  had  been  assigned  on  short 
notice  the  artillery  of  the  30th  Division,  which,  how- 
ever zealous  and  well-trained,  had  not  worked  with 
the  division  or  ever  operated  in  a  serious  action,  let 
alone  protected  infantry  advancing  for  such  a  dis- 
tance over  such  monstrously  difficult  ground. 

On  the  right  of  the  37th  was  the  79th,  National 
Army  drawn  from  Virginia,  Maryland,  and  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia.  Major-General  Joseph  E. 
Kuhn,  who  was  in  command,  was  well-known  as  an 
able  engineer  officer.  He  had  served  as  an  attache 
with  the  Japanese  in  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  see- 
ing more  of  the  operations  than  any  other  single 
foreign  officer;  and  he  had  been  an  attache  in  Ger- 
many early  in  the  Great  War,  afterward  becoming 
president  of  the  War  College  in  Washington.  Aside 
from  this  equipment  his  untiring  energy,  his  high 
spirits,  and  his  personality  fitted  him  for  inculcating 
in  a  division  confidence  in  itself  and  its  leadership. 

The  79th,  with  men  from  both  sides  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line,  united  North  and  South  in  its 
ranks.    Since  its  arrival  from  the  States  it  had  hardly 


64  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

had  time  to  become  acclimatized.  In  place  of  its 
own  artillery,  which  was  not  yet  equipped,  it  had 
not  even  a  homogeneous  artillery  brigade.  Of 
American  artillery  (aside  from  seventeen  of  the 
French  batteries  upon  which  we  were  relying  so 
largely  for  our  preliminary  bombardment)  it  had 
three  regiments,  less  six  batteries,  from  the  experi- 
enced 32nd  Division,  and  one  regiment  from  the 
41st  Division.  Though  the  79th  had  never  been 
under  fire  before,  though  it  had  only  training-camp 
experience,  it  was  expected,  after  taking  the  first- 
line  fortifications,  to  cover  the  most  ground  of  any 
division  on  the  first  day,  and  though  it  did  not  have 
to  fight  its  way  through  any  important  woods  it  was 
to  proceed  along  the  valley  of  the  Montfaucon  road, 
passing  over  formidable  ridges  which  were  under 
the  observation  of  woods  on  either  flank  capable  of 
concealing  any  amount  of  enemy  artillery. 


V 


ON  THE  MEUSE  SIDE 

The  ground  of  the  Verdun  battle — The  Crown  Prince's  observa- 
tory— The  Third  Corps  to  move  the  right  flank  down  the 
Meuse — Businesslike  quality  of  the  4th  Division — A  marshy 
front  and  no  roads — Swinging  movement  of  the  Blue  Ridge 
Division — The  Illinois  Division  to  secure  the  right  flank — 
Dominating  heights  east  of  the  Meuse. 

At  this  point  let  us  consider  the  missions  of  the 
three  corps.  Liggett's  First,  with  the  77th,  28th, 
and  35th  Divisions,  had  the  problem  of  the  left  flank, 
the  conquest  of  the  Argonne  Forest,  the  valley  of 
the  Aire,  and  the  heights  of  the  eastern  valley  wall, 
which  was  so  essential  to  supporting  the  movement 
of  Cameron's  Fifth  Corps  in  the  center.  The  Fifth, 
with  the  91st,  37th,  and  79th  Divisions,  was  to  make 
the  bulge  of  the  sweep  toward  the  main  crests  of  the 
whale-back.  Its  objective  on  the  first  day  was  the 
town  of  Montfaucon,  whose  whitish  ruins  on  the 
distant  hilltop  pretty  well  commanded  all  the  ter- 
rain on  the  corps  front.  Here  the  Crown  Prince 
through  his  telescope,  at  the  safe  distance  which  was 
in  keeping  with  the  strong  sense  of  self-preservation 
of  the  Hohenzollerns,  had  watched  some  of  the  at- 
tacks on  Verdun. 

65 


66  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

This  sector  was  near  enough  to  the  battleground 
of  Verdun  to  have  participated  in  some  of  the 
volume  of  shell-fire  which  had  left  no  square  yard 
of  earth  in  No  Man's  Land,  or  for  half  a  mile 
on  either  side  of  the  trenches,  untouched  by  explo- 
sions. The  thicker  the  shell-craters,  the  more  diffi- 
cult it  is  to  keep  uniformity  of  movement.  They 
are  useful  for  cover  for  a  halted  charge,  but  for  a 
charge  that  is  intended  to  go  through,  as  ours  was, 
they  meant  that  troops  must  pick  their  way  over 
unstable  footing.  In  view  of  the  possibilities  of 
French  counter-attacks  the  Germans  had  hardly  been 
negligent  in  perfecting  all  their  defenses  during  the 
tVerdun  battle. 

The  groups  of  woods  south  of  Montfaucon  and 
north  and  west  of  Avocourt  was  the  heart  of  the 
German  defense  against  the  Fifth  Corps.  Against 
Cheppy  Wood  which  covered  Vauquois  the  French, 
in  19 1 5  when  small  offensives  were  still  the  rule, 
had  made  many  attacks  in  order  to  gain  the  domi- 
nating position  of  Vauquois;  and  later,  in  the 
Verdun  battle  and  subsequent  offensive  operations  by 
the  French,  the  Germans  had  used  the  woods  as 
shelter  for  reserves,  which  drew  persistent  shell-fire 
of  large  caliber  from  the  French.  A  thick  second 
growth  had  sprouted  up  around  the  shell-craters  and 
broken  timbers,  which  afforded  concealment  to  the 
enemy  and  confused  any  platoon  or  company  com- 


ON  THE  MEUSE  SIDE  67 

mander  in  keeping  his  men  together  and  in  touch 
with  the  platoon  or  company  on  either  flank. 

The  assignment  of  such  an  ambitious  objective  to 
these  three  divisions  required  an  abounding  faith 
in  their  manhood,  initiative,  and  training  upon  the 
part  of  an  audacious  command.  I  may  add  that 
before  the  attack  the  Germans  had  taken  one  pris- 
oner from  the  79th  Division,  which  they  thus  identi- 
fied; they  did  not  know  of  the  presence  of  the  other 
two  divisions.  As  the  79th  had  never  been  in  line 
before,  they  were  warranted  in  thinking  that  a  green 
division  could  be  there  for  no  other  purpose  than 
the  usual  trench  training  which  we  had  systematically 
given  all  our  divisions  before  they  went  into  serious 
action.  When  the  79th  came  rushing  on  toward 
Montfaucon  on  the  morning  of  the  26th,  the  enemy's 
surprise  was  warranted  by  all  their  canons  of  mili- 
tary experience. 

The  Third  Corps  on  the  right  flank,  with  its  right 
on  the  Meuse  River,  had  in  a  broad  sense  the  same 
mission  as  the  First  in  supporting  the  main  drive 
toward  the  whale-back  by  the  Fifth.  On  its  left  in 
liaison  with  the  79th  was  the  4th,  the  only  regular 
division  in  the  attack,  under  Major-General  John 
L.  Hines,  whose  ability  was  later  rewarded  by  a 
corps  command.  Regular  divisions  had  a  certain  ad- 
vantage in  the  assignment  of  experienced  profes- 
sional officers  and  in  the  confidence  of  the  staff  in 


68  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  value  of  regular  traditions  which  must  be  main- 
tained. Though  in  detached  units,  the  4th  had  had 
a  thorough  trial  in  the  Marne  counter-offensive  of 
July  1 8th  to  24th.  Then  it  had  been  swung  round, 
and  as  an  intact  division  had  taken  over  from  the 
42nd,  after  the  heights  of  the  Ourcq  were  gained, 
for  the  final  pursuit  to  the  Vesle,  where  it  had  a 
taste  of  shells,  gas,  and  machine-gun  fire  in  the 
"  pocket "  before  it  was  relieved  by  the  77th  and 
started  for  Saint-Mihiel.  The  4th  was  a  thor- 
oughly regular  and  singularly  efficient  division,  dis- 
inclined to  advertisement,  doing  its  duty  systemati- 
cally and  unflinchingly. 

At  the  outset  of  its  advance  it  would  have  to 
cross  marshy  ground  and  the  Forges  Brook,  from 
which  the  footbridges  had  naturally  been  removed 
by  the  enemy.  On  the  left  it  was  to  keep  up  with 
the  swift  progress  of  the  79th,  with  its  course  domi- 
nated on  the  left  by  the  Montfaucon  heights,  and  on 
the  right  by  the  heights  east  of  the  Meuse — of  which 
we  shall  hear  much  before  the  story  of  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  battle  is  told.  There  were  wicked  slopes 
and  woods  to  be  conquered.  Indeed,  its  position 
on  the  right  flank  of  the  79th  confronted  as  stern 
and  complex  difficulties  as  that  of  the  37th  on  the 
left  flank  of  the  79th. 

On  its  right  was  the  80th  Division  under  Major- 
General  Adelbert  Cronkhite,  sturdy,  thick-set,  cut 


ON  THE  MEUSE  SIDE  69 

out  of  sandstone,  who  faced  the  world  all  four- 
square with  his  Blue  Ridge  men.  The  80th  had 
done  well  at  the  British  front,  and  had  been  in 
reserve  at  Saint-Mihiel.  Though  it  had  its  own 
divisional  artillery  and  its  units  complete,  this  was 
its  first  experience  in  a  drive  through  first-line  forti- 
fications for  an  extensive  objective.  If  it  had  not  so 
far  to  go  as  the  4th,  its  trying  maneuver  in  swinging 
toward  the  Meuse  included  passing  between  the  Jure 
and  Forges  Woods,  which,  unless  cleared  of  the 
enemy,  would  enfilade  its  advance  with  machine-gun 
fire. 

The  33rd  Division,  Illinois  National  Guard,  had 
the  extreme  right.  I  have  mentioned  already  the 
preparation  which  the  33rd  had  had  in  the  August 
offensive  with  the  British.  Major-General  George 
Bell  was  calm  and  suave,  but  a  stalwart  disci- 
plinarian. Before  leaving  the  States  he  had 
eliminated  many  officers  who  for  temperament, 
physical  disability,  or  other  reasons  appeared  less 
serviceable  abroad  than  at  home.  This  enabled  him 
to  travel  to  France  without  excess  baggage,  and  to 
arrive  there  with  his  organization  knit  together  by 
a  harmonious  and  spirited  personnel.  As  for  his 
men,  they  were  from  Illinois  and  of  the  Illinois 
National  Guard,  as  you  may  learn  in  Cairo,  Spring- 
field, or  Chicago,  for  Illinois  had  been  one  of  the 
forward  states  in  supporting  its  Guardsmen. 


70  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

The  33rd  was  to  swing  up  along  the  Meuse  by 
noon  of  the  first  day,  and  to  rest  there  as  a  pivot 
for  the  Third  Corps, — a  delicate  operation.  Its 
position  was  as  picturesque  as  its  record  was  various, 
in  its  service  first  with  the  British  under  the  Aus- 
tralian Corps,  then  with  a  French,  and  later  with  an 
American  Corps.  If  the  war  had  lasted  long  enough 
the  Illinois  men  might  have  been  sent  to  serve  on 
the  Italian  front,  to  complete  their  itinerary  of  mili- 
tary cosmopolitanism.  At  its  back  now  was  the 
Mort  Homme,  or  Dead  Man's  Hill,  whose  mention 
in  the  communiques  during  the  Verdun  fighting  was 
frequent  in  the  days  when  the  world  hung  on  the 
news  of  a  few  hundred  yards  gained  or  lost  on  the 
right  or  left  bank  of  the  Meuse.  There  under  coun- 
tering barrages  from  the  quick-firers  and  the  plow- 
ing by  high  explosive  shells,  Frenchman  and  Ger- 
man had  groveled  in  the  torn  earth,  mixed  with 
blood  and  flesh,  between  the  throes  of  hectic 
charges  for  advantage.  The  Germans  won  the  hill, 
but  eventually  the  French  regained  it.  Then  silence 
fell  on  the  shambles  where  the  unrecognizable  dead 
rested,  and  above  them  rose  not  the  red  poppies  of 
the  poet's  pictures,  but  weed  and  ragged  grass  from 
the  edges  of  the  shell-craters. 

Such  was  the  texture  of  the  rising  undulating 
carpet  unrolled  to  the  northeast  over  the  battle- 
field of  Verdun.     In  the  foreground  it  was  varie- 


ON  THE  MEUSE  SIDE  71 

gated  by  the  ruins  of  villages  and  those  exclamation 
points  of  desolation,  the  limbless  trees,  which  melted 
into  its  greenish-ashen  sweep  over  the  fort-crowned 
hills  in  the  distance.  Beyond  them  was  the  plain  of 
the  Woevre;  and  beyond  that  was  Germany.  An 
occasional  shell-burst  showed  that  the  volcano  of 
war  still  simmered;  its  report  was  an  echo  of  the 
crashing  thunders  of  the  past,  which  we  were  to 
awaken  again  in  the  valley  of  the  Meuse. ' 

The  Meuse  seemed  only  a  larger  Aire,  asking  its 
way  sinuously  in  this  broken  country.  As  vision 
followed  its  course  past  the  German  trench  system 
in  front  of  the  Mort  Homme  and  past  the  area  of 
destruction,  it  was  arrested  by  the  bald  ridge  of  the 
Borne  de  Cornouiller,  or  Hill  378.  Mark  the 
name !  It  will  have  a  sinister  part  in  our  battle. 
Ten  of  our  divisions  were  to  know  its  wrath  with- 
out knowing  its  name.  Higher  than  any  of  the 
Verdun  forts,  except  Douaumont,  and  higher  than 
the  heights  of  the  whale-back,  it  had  been  in  the 
possession  of  the  Germans  since  August,  1914. 
From  its  summit  observers  could  give  the  targets  to 
the  countless  guns  hidden  in  the  woods  and  ravines 
of  its  reverse  slopes. 

An  offensive  against  frontal  positions  resembles 
the  swinging  open  of  double  doors,  with  their  hinges 
at  the  points  where  the  first-line  fortifications  are 
broken.      The   farther  the   doors   are   swung,   the 


72  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

greater  the  danger  of  enemy  pressure  on  the  hinges, 
whose  protection  is  the  tactician's  nightmare.  In 
broadening  his  front  of  offensive  operations  by  al- 
ternating attacks  Marshal  Foch  may  be  said  to 
have  been  opening  several  doors  which  were 
to  become  the  alternately  advancing  panels  of  a 
Screen. 

The  Fourth  French  Army  was  the  left  flank  of 
our  army  in  the  Meuse-Argonne.     As  its  left,  and 
therefore  the  left  of  the  whole   Franco- American 
attack,  was  making  only  a   slight  advance  at  the 
start,  it  was  little  exposed.     Our  Third  Corps  had 
the  right  flank  of  the  whole  movement,  the  Meuse 
River  being  the  hinge,  with  the  swing  toward  the 
west  bank  of  the  Meuse,  which  bends  westward  to- 
ward the  heights  of  the  whale-back  on  the  Corps 
front.    This  gave  it  a  frontal  command  of  the  west 
bank,  while  it  put  the  German  trench  system  on  the 
east  bank  in  the  right  rear  of  our  line  of  general 
movement.     Though  the  Meuse  was  an  unfordable 
stream,  and  we  held  the  bridgeheads  to  prevent  any 
infantry  counter-attack,  this  could  not  prevent  cross- 
fire upon  us  from  artillery  and  even  from  machine- 
guns.    As  from  the  Mort  Homme  one  had  a  visual 
comprehension  of  the  mission  of  the  Third  Corps, 
which  was  more  informing,  not  to  say  more  thrilling, 
than  the  study  of  maps  at  Headquarters,  the  inevi- 
table question  came  to  mind  as  to  what  was  being 


ON  THE  MEUSE  SIDE  73 

done  for  our  protection  on  the  east  bank.  The 
answer  was  that  French  artillery  and  infantry  were 
to  undertake  "  exploitation."  This  was  a  familiar 
word,  which  could  not  intimidate  the  artillery  on  the 
Borne  de  Cornouiller.  Forces  in  exploitation  on  the 
flanks,  however  encouraging  in  battle  plans,  form  an 
elastic  term  in  application,  dependent  upon  what 
sacrifices  they  will  make  in  the  thankless  task  of 
diverting  the  enemy's  fire  to  themselves.  With  the 
heights  of  the  Meuse  commanding  one  flank  and  the 
heights  of  the  whale-back  commanding  the  other, 
the  Third  Corps  was  to  operate  in  the  Meuse 
trough  as  in  the  pit  of  an  amphitheater,  striving  to 
fight  its  way  up  the  seats  under  a  plunging  fire  from 
the  gallery. 

Still,  there  was  nothing  else  to  be  done.  Some- 
one had  to  take  punishment  on  the  flanks  for  the 
support  of  the  drive  on  the  center.  The  grueling 
which  the  Third  Corps  was  to  endure  in  advancing 
on  one  side  of  the  trough  of  a  river  valley  beyond 
the  enemy  line  on  the  other  was  as  certain  to  entail 
severe  losses  as  was  the  mission  of  the  First  Corps 
against  the  Argonne  Forest  and  down  the  valley  of 
the  Aire.  The  duty  of  all  concerned,  in  an  offen- 
sive which  was  organized  in  haste  in  the  hope  of 
winning  a  great  prize  by  springing  into  the  breach 
of  opportunity,  was  not  to  hesitate  in  consideration 
of  handicaps,  but  to  minimize  them  as  much  as  pos- 


74  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

sible  in  the  initial  plan,  and  then  to  strike  in  fullness 
of  confidence  and  of  all  the  power  at  our  com- 
mand. The  strategy  of  the  battle  was  daring  in  con- 
ception, and  resolute  in  execution. 


VI 


WE  BREAK  THROUGH 

French  gunners  at  home  in  the  landscape — Sleep  by  regulations 
in  9pite  of  suspense — "  Over  the  top  "  not  a  rush — Difficulty  of 
keeping  to  a  time-table — Even  with  a  guiding  barrage — What 
barbed  wire  means — And  the  trench  mazes  beyond — Moving 
up  behind  the  infantry. 

The  Pacific  Slope,  Kansas,  Missouri,  Ohio,  Penn- 
sylvania, Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  New- 
York  thus  had  the  honor  of  the  initial  attack  in  our 
greatest  battle,  in  which  men  from  every  state  in  the 
Union  were  to  have  a  part  before  it  was  won.  In 
that  area  of  rolling  country  from  Verdun  to  the 
Bar-le-Duc-Clermont  road,  which  had  been  stealthily 
peopled  by  our  soldiers,  the  swarming  of  their  khaki 
was  relieved  by  scattered  touches  of  the  blue  of  the 
Frenchmen  who  had  come  to  assist  us.  Though  ours 
was  the  flesh  and  blood  which  was  to  do  the  fighting 
— every  infantryman  was  an  American — the  French 
were  filling  the  gaps  in  our  equipment  which  we 
could  have  filled  ourselves,  as  I  have  said,  only  by 
delaying  the  Meuse-Argonne  offensive  until  the 
spring  of  1919  as  we  had  originally  planned. 

Under  their  camouflage  curtains  in  an  open  field, 
or  in  the  edge  of  a  woods,  or  under  the  screen  of 

75 


76  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

bushes  which  fringed  a  gully,  the  groups  of  French 
gunners  seemed  at  home  in  a  landscape  that  was 
native  to  them  while  it  was  alien  to  the  Americans. 
When  at  rest  their  supple  lounging  attitudes  had  a 
certain  defiance  of  formal  military  standards,  as  if 
French  democracy  were  flouting  Prussian  militar- 
ism. When  the  order  for  firing  came,  the  transition 
was  to  the  alertness  of  the  batter  stepping  up  to 
the  plate,  and  their  swift  movements  had  the  grace 
and  confidence  of  professional  mastery  which  had 
long  put  behind  it  the  rudimentary  formalities  of 
the  drill-ground.  They  seemed  a  living  part  of  the 
infantry,  their  pulse-beats  answering  the  infantry's 
steps.  Never  were  guests  more  welcome  than  they 
to  our  army.  We  could  not  have  too  many  French 
guns — or  cannon,  as  our  communiques  called  them  in 
recognition  of  the  unfamiliarity  of  our  public  with 
military  terms — playing  on  the  enemy's  trenches  and 
barbed  wire  in  the  preliminary  bombardment  which 
blazed  a  way  for  the  charge. 

I  have  known  the  suspense  preceding  many  at- 
tacks while  the  darkness  before  dawn  was  slashed 
by  the  flashes  from  nearby  gun  mouths  and  splashed 
by  the  broad  sheets  of  flame  from  distant  gun 
mouths.  There  is  nothing  more  contrary  to  nature 
than  that  the  quiet  hours  of  the  night  should  be 
turned  into  an  inferno  of  crashes  and,  at  the 
moment  of  dawn,  when  the  world  refreshed  looks 


WE  BREAK  THROUGH  77. 

forward  to  a  new  day,  men  should  be  sent  to  their 
death.  The  suspense  before  the  Meuse-Argonne 
attack  was  greater  than  before  the  Somme  attack, 
when  the  British  new  army,  after  its  months  of 
preparation  and  nearly  two  years  of  training,  was 
sent  against  the  German  line;  it  was  greater  than 
before  Saint-Mihiel,  our  own  first  offensive. 

At  Saint-Mihiel  we  had  hints  that  the  enemy 
would  oppose  us  with  only  a  rearguard  action.  Our 
mission  would  be  finished  with  the  first  onslaught; 
we  had  only  to  cut  the  salient;  the  result  was  meas- 
urably certain,  while  in  the  Meuse-Argonne  it  was 
on  the  knees  of  the  gods.  The  Germans  could 
afford  to  yield  at  Saint-Mihiel;  they  could  not  in  the 
Meuse-Argonne,  where,  if  informed  of  the  char- 
acter of  our  plan,  they  might  make  a  firm  resistance 
in  the  first-line  fortifications  or  at  such  points  in 
them  as  suited  their  purpose  in  seeking  to  draw  us 
into  salients,  to  be  slaughtered  by  enfilade  fire  as 
the  French  were  in  their  spring  offensive  of  19 17. 

After  the  preliminary  bombardment  began  at  mid- 
night, our  American  Army  world,  as  detached  in  its 
preoccupation  with  its  own  existence,  as  much  apart 
from  the  earth,  as  if  it  were  on  another  planet, 
waited  on  the  dawn  of  morning,  which  was  the 
dawn  of  battle.  The  stars  which  were  out  in  their 
distant  serenity  had  a  matter-of-fact  appeal  to  gen- 
erals to  whom  a  clear  day  meant  no  quagmires  to 


78  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

impede  the  advance.  It  was  the  business  of  all 
except  the  gunners  and  the  truck-drivers,  or  of  those 
speeding  on  errands  to  tie  up  any  loose  ends  of 
organization,  to  try  to  force  a  little  sleep.  Even  the 
infantry,  with  the  shells  screaming  over  their  heads, 
were  supposed  to  make  the  most  of  their  inertia  in 
rest  which  would  give  them  reserve  strength  for  the 
work  ahead. 

This  was  in  keeping  with  the  formula  which  had 
been  studied  and  worked  out  through  experience. 
No  one  not  firing  shells  could  be  of  any  service  in 
smashing  in  strong  points  or  cutting  barbed  wire. 
Particularly  it  behooved  high  staff  officers  and  com- 
manders to  lie  down,  with  minds  closed  to  all 
thoughts  of  mistakes  already  made  or  apprehensions 
of  future  mistakes,  in  order  to  be  fortified  with 
steady  nerves,  clear  vision  and  stored  vitality  for  the 
decisions  which  they  would  have  to  make  when  they 
had  news  of  the  progress  of  the  action.  The  plans 
for  the  attack  were  set;  they  might  not  be  changed 
now;  the  attack  must  be  precipitated.  Aides  pro- 
tected their  generals  from  interruption,  and  ar- 
ranged that  they  should  have  food  to  their  liking, 
and  as  comfortable  a  bed  as  possible.  No  genius 
composing  a  sonnet  or  a  sonata  could  have  been 
more  securely  protected  in  his  seclusion  than  a  corps 
commander.  The  rigorous  drill  which  had  formed 
the  men  in  the  front  line  to  be  the  pawns  of  superior 


WE  BREAK  THROUGH  79 

will  was  applied  to  keep  the  superior  will  in  training 
for  its  task. 

General  Pershing  kept  faith  with  the  formula, 
and  many  others  followed  his  example,  though 
junior  staff  officers  worked  through  the  night.  They 
were  plentiful,  and  "  expendable,"  as  the  army  say- 
ing goes,  as  expendable  in  nervous  prostration  as 
were  in  wounds  and  death  the  young  lieutenants  who 
were  to  lead  their  platoons  into  the  hell  of  machine- 
gun  fire.  Waiting — waiting — waiting  while  the  guns 
thundered  were  the  ambulances  beside  the  road,  the 
divisional  transport,  the  ammunition  and  engineer 
trains,  the  aviators  with  their  planes  tuned  up  and 
ready,  the  doctors  and  nurses  at  the  dressing-stations 
and  evacuation  hospitals,  and  the  reserve  troops  in 
billets.  Officially  through  his  orders  everyone  con- 
cerned knew  only  his  own  part,  but  all  knew  without 
asking  that  an  unprecedented  ordeal  was  coming. 

It  was  easier  for  French  and  British  veterans, 
familiarized  by  other  offensives  with  the  roar  and 
the  flashes  of  artillery,  to  relax  than  for  Americans 
who  were  having  the  experience  for  the  first  time. 
With  sufficient  practice  one  may  learn  to  sleep  with 
a  six-inch  howitzer  battery  in  an  adjoining  field  shak- 
ing the  earth.  Many  times  during  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  battle  I  have  seen  our  own  veterans  giving 
proof  of  such  hardihood;  but  on  this  night  of  Sep- 
tember 25th  it  was  not  in  human  nature  for  all  the 


80  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

thousands  who  were  to  have  no  sleep  the  next  day 
or  the  next  night  to  summon  oblivion  to  their  sur- 
roundings. Those  who  fell  asleep  slept  with  nerves 
taut  with  anticipation  and  in  the  consciousness  of 
a  nightmare,  in  which  the  rending  thunders  were 
mixed  with  reflection  upon  their  own  arduous  efforts 
and  their  part  in  the  future.  Everyone  was  a  runner 
crouched  for  the  pistol-shot,  as  he  awaited  the  dawn. 
The  great  test  for  which  all  had  prepared  individ- 
ually and  collectively  for  two  years  was  coming 
tomorrow. 

With  the  first  flush  of  thin  light  the  observation 
balloons  had  risen  in  stately  dignity  from  the  earth 
mist,  and  the  planes  had  taken  to  the  sky  and  swept 
out  over  the  enemy  lines :  the  combat  planes  seeking 
foes  and  the  observers  to  watch  the  progress  of  the 
charge  or  enemy  movements  or  the  location  of  bat- 
teries or  of  machine-gun  nests  which  were  harassing 
our  infantry.  Mobilization  by  the  aviators  for  the 
offensive  had  not  been  hampered  by  the  problems  of 
one-way  and  two-way  roads.  They  flew  over  from 
Saint-Mihiel  the  afternoon  before  or  on  the  morn- 
ing the  battle  began. 

At  5.30,  just  as  a  moving  man  would  be  visible  a 
few  yards  away,  from  the  Meuse  to  the  western  edge 
of  the  Argonne,  where  we  had  our  liaison  with  the 
French  who  advanced  at  the  same  moment,  our  men 
left  the  old  French  trenches  and  started  for  the 


WE  BREAK  THROUGH  81 

German  trenches.  Everyone  is  familiar  with  the 
phrase  "  going  over  the  top,"  yet  despite  the  count- 
less descriptions  everyone  who  saw  an  attack  for  the 
first  time  remarked,  "  I  didn't  know  it  was  like 
that!  "  The  system  of  the  advance  on  the  morning 
of  September  26th  accorded  with  the  accepted  prac- 
tice of  the  time.  In  their  familiarity  with  the  system 
soldiers  and  correspondents  have  taken  it  for 
granted  that  what  was  common  knowledge  to  them 
was  common  knowledge  to  all  the  world.  Only 
when  they  returned  home  did  they  realize  their 
error,  and  learn  that  ignorance  of  fundamentals  in- 
grained in  army  experience  had  made  their  narra- 
tives Greek  to  all  who  had  not  been  in  action. 

The  average  man  is  slow  to  yield  his  idea  that 
a  charge  is  an  impetuous  sweep.  It  sounds  more 
real  to  say  that  "  the  boys  rushed  "  than  to  say  that 
they  advanced  with  the  sedateness  of  a  G.  A.  R. 
parade  on  Decoration  Day,  which  is  more  like  what 
really  happened.  Indeed,  they  simply  walked,  un- 
heroic  as  that  may  seem;  and  from  high  ground,  or 
better  still  from  a  plane  flying  low,  an  observer  saw 
to  the  limit  of  vision  right  and  left  men  proceeding 
at  a  set  and  regular  pace.  The  more  uniform  and 
the  more  automatic  this  was,  the  better.  On  closer 
view  every  man,  except  in  height  and  physique,  was 
a  duplicate  of  the  others,  in  helmet,  in  pack,  in  gas 
mask,  in  every  detail  of  uniform,  even  in  the  way 


82  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

he  carried  his  rifle  with  its  glistening  bayonet,  which 
was  the  only  relief  to  khaki  on  the  background  of 
somber-tinted  earth. 

Every  man,  every  platoon,  and  on  through  the 
different  units  to  divisions  and  corps,  was  moving  on 
a  time  schedule.  A  competition  between  companies 
to  "  get  there  "  first  would  have  resulted  from  the 
start  in  a  hopeless  tangle.  If  not  literally,  it  may  be 
said  broadly  that  each  company  was  to  be  at  a  given 
point  on  the  map  at  a  given  hour;  and  if  one  com- 
pany, or  battalion  or  regiment,  for  that  matter,  out- 
distanced another,  it  was  because  it  had  kept  its 
schedule  and  the  other  had  not.  In  case  it  became 
"  heady "  and  was  on  its  objective  in  advance  of 
schedule,  it  ran  the  risk  of  "  exposing  its  flanks."  At 
least  that  is  the  theory  of  the  staff  in  its  essence. 
An  ideal  army,  according  to  the  staff,  would  be  at 
a  given  line  on  the  map  at  10.30,  at  another  at 
11.30,  and  so  on.  This  might  be  possible  if  there 
were  no  enemy  to  consider,  although  it  would  require 
an  adept  army,  as  everyone  who  has  ever  drilled 
recruits  well  appreciates.  He  knows  how  long  it 
takes  to  train  them,  and  to  learn  how  to  direct  a 
small  force  in  carrying  out  satisfactorily  a  practice 
skirmish  evolution  over  slightly  uneven  ground. 
The  gregarious  instinct  of  itself  seems  to  break  uni- 
formity by  drawing  men  into  groups  in  face  of  in- 
fantry fire  in  battle  for  the  first  time,  as  well  as 


WE  BREAK  THROUGH  83 

eagerness  to  close  with  the  enemy  and  gravitation 
away  from  the  points  of  its  concentration.  Shell- 
bursts  scatter  them,  casualties  make  gaps  which  lead 
to  further  disorganization. 

Could  our  army  have  had  reproduced  for  its  edifi- 
cation the  confusion  of  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  or  of 
Shiloh,  it  would  have  realized  the  purpose  of  all  the 
painstaking  drill,  the  monotonous  and  wearing  dis- 
cipline, which  made  the  well-ordered  movement  pos- 
sible. Its  very  deliberateness  in  maintaining  the 
coordination  of  all  its  units  gave  it  a  majesty  in  its 
broad  and  mighty  sweep,  which  was  more  like  the 
sweep  of  a  great  river  than  the  cataract  rush  of  the 
small  forces  of  the  old  days,  which  the  public  still 
continued  to  visualize  as  a  charge.  I  thought  of  it 
too  as  in  keeping  with  the  organization  of  modern 
life,  in  the  trains  entering  and  leaving  a  great  city 
station  or  the  methodical  processes  of  a  vast  manu- 
facturing concern. 

How  did  our  men  know  whether  or  not  they  were 
keeping  their  schedule?  Did  they  look  at  their 
watches  as  they  counted  their  steps?  They  had  a 
monitor  at  first  in  the  rolling  barrage,  that  curtain  of 
fire  which  preceded  them.  This  was  their  moving 
shield  which  the  guns  far  in  rear  provided  for  their 
guidance  as  well  as  protection.  If  they  came  too 
close  to  the  barrage,  they  were  exposed  no  less  than, 
their  enemies  to  death  from  its  hail. 


84  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

We  may  have  a  comparison  in  marching  behind  a 
road  sprinkler,  with  orders  to  keep  just  out  of 
reach  of  its  spray,  which  will  be  obeyed  if  the  spray 
consist  of  nitric  acid  instead  of  water.  The  more 
guns  the  stronger  the  shield.  We  could  never  have 
an  excess  of  guns  as  Grant  had  at  the  outset  of  the 
Wilderness  campaign,  when  he  sent  many  batteries 
of  the  short-range  pieces  of  those  days  to  the  rear 
for  want  of  room  on  a  narrow  front  in  which  to 
maneuver  them.  Caesar  applied  the  first  barrage  in 
France  in  his  tactical  use  of  the  shields  of  his  legions, 
who  owed  their  success  to  systematic  training  no  less 
than  we  in  the  Meuse-Argonne.  His  men  had  to 
carry  their  own  shields;  the  modern  soldier  has 
enough  to  carry  without  carrying  his. 

Suspense  was  most  taut,  it  was  agonizing,  as  every 
soldier  knows,  in  the  waiting  hours  ticking  away  into 
waiting  minutes  before  the  charge.  As  the  final 
minute  approached,  the  veteran,  as  a  connoisseur  in 
death's  symbols,  might  find  assurance  in  the  strength, 
and  apprehension  in  the  weakness,  of  the  supporting 
barrage  laid  down  on  the  enemy  trenches.  Those  of 
our  men  who  had  not  been  in  battle  before  could 
have  no  such  prescience.  They  did  know  that  when 
they  left  their  trenches  the  full  length  of  their  bodies 
would  be  exposed.  They  would  march,  rifle  in  hand, 
without  firing,  while  only  the  shield  of  the  shells 
from  friendly  guns  screaming  over  their  heads — the 


WE  BREAK  THROUGH  85 

greater  the  volume,  the  sweeter  the  music — could 
silence  the  fire  of  rifles  and  machine-guns  which  had 
them  at  merciless  point-blank  range.  Instantly  they 
climbed  "  over  the  top,"  anticipation  became  realiza- 
tion. One  ceased  to  listen  to  his  heart-beats.  The 
emotion  became  that  of  action.  Suspense  became  ob- 
jective, merged  in  responsibility  for  every  man  in 
watching  where  he  stepped  as  he  moved  toward  his 
goal,  and  for  every  captain  and  lieutenant  in  direct- 
ing his  company  or  platoon. 

The  most  careful  maneuvering  on  fields  at  home 
was  poor  preparation  for  No  Man's  Land,  which! 
is  like  nothing  else  in  the  world  except  No  Man's 
Land.  Millions  of  soldiers  know  it  through  long 
watches  over  its  dreary  lifeless  space,  and  more 
vividly  through  crossing  it  in  a  charge.  For  four 
years  it  had  been  the  zone  of  death  where  no  soldier 
from  either  side  ventured  except  at  night  on  patrol 
or  in  a  raid  or  general  attack.  All  this  time  shells 
had  been  pummeling  it.  The  rims  of  craters,  of 
sizes  varying  with  the  calibers  of  the  shells,  joined 
each  other;  old  craters  had  been  partly  filled  by 
later  bursts.  This  continued  pestling  of  the  soil  with 
nothing  to  press  it  down  but  the  rain  made  it  the 
more  spongy  in  wet  weather  and  the  looser  in  dry 
weather.  The  heads  of  the  men  bobbed  as  they 
advanced,  stepping  in  and  out  of  craters,  and  wove 
in  and  out  as  they  passed  around  craters.     Th§ 


86  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

rims  often  gave  way  with  their  weight,  or  they 
slipped  on  the  dew-moist  weeds  that  fringed  them  or 
upon  some  "  dud "  shell  hidden  in  the  weeds,  as 
their  attention  was  diverted  from  the  ground  under 
foot  by  the  burst  of  an  enemy  shell  or  of  one  from 
their  own  guns  which  fell  dangerously  short. 

As  our  artillery,  in  order  to  preserve  the  element 
of  surprise,  had  not ."  registered "  with  practice 
shots,  it  was  firing  strictly  by  the  map ;  and,  though 
its  accuracy  was  wonderful,  inexperienced  gunners 
manning  guns  which  had  not  had  the  allowances  for 
■error  recently  tabulated,  were  bound,  in  some  cases, 
to  send  their  shells  wide  of  the  mark.  The  big 
calibers  might  fail  to  destroy  "  strong  points  "  that 
held  machine-gun  nests,  or  a  battery  of  seventy-fives 
fail  to  cut  the  section  of  wire  which  was  its  assign- 
ment. For  these  mistakes  the  infantry  must  suffer. 
Jt  is  the  infantry  which  always  pays  the  price  in 
blood  for  all  mistakes ;  and  the  transfer  of  an  officer 
to  Blois  or  the  demotion  of  a  general  officer  would 
iiot  bring  back  their  dead. 

Their  immediate  concern,  as  that  of  every  in- 
fantryman had  been  in  every  charge  throughout  the 
jyar,  as  they  crossed  No  Man's  Land,  was  the  wire 
entanglements.  All  the  original  wire,  four  years' 
exposure  to  the  weather  making  its  rusty  barbs  the 
more  threatening,  was  still  there  in  some  form  or 
gtther,  though  it  had  been  ruptured  or  further  twisted 


WE  BREAK  THROUGH  87 

by  previous  bombardments  whose  craters  only  added 
to  the  difficulties  of  passage.  Breaks  had  been  filled 
by  new  wire,  which  rather  supplemented  the  old  than 
took  its  place.  Additional  stretches  had  been  put  out 
at  intervals  to  reinforce  the  defense  of  vital  points. 
A  half-dozen  strands  will  halt  a  charge  in  its  tracks  ,- 
here  was  a  close-woven  skein,  from  three  and  four 
to  twenty  yards  in  depth.  Where  the  depth  was 
greatest,  it  was  most  likely  to  have  a  continuous  un- 
cut stretch  which  the  enemy  had  marked  as  a  target 
for  fire  upon  the  arrested  attackers. 

According  to  photographs  of  selected  areas,  which 
show  a  few  bits  of  wire  sticking  out  of  a  choppy 
sea  of  fresh  earth,  every  square  yard  of  which  has 
been  lashed  by  shell-fire,  it  would  seem  that  artillery 
was  accustomed  to  do  as  thorough  mowing  as  a 
reaper  in  a  field  of  grain.  Even  with  treble  our 
volume  of  artillery  fire,  taking  treble  the  length  of 
time  of  our  bombardment,  and  with  every  shell  per- 
fectly accurate  on  its  target,  we  could  hardly  have 
accomplished  any  such  blessed  result.  The  best  that 
could  be  expected  was  that  lanes  would  be  opened 
at  frequent  intervals. 

A  break  in  the  uniformity  of  advance  appeared  at 
once  when  one  platoon  or  company  had  a  clear  space 
on  its  front  while  its  neighbors  had  not.  Suppose 
that  for  five  hundred  yards  of  distance  the  guns  had 
completely   failed   and   for  five   hundred  yards   oa 


88  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

either  side  they  had  succeeded:  then  you  had  two 
exposed  flanks  sweeping  forward  into  the  trenches 
beyond,  possibly  against  the  enfilade  fire  of  machine- 
gun  points  especially  established  for  this  opportunity. 

Where  the  guns  had  not  done  the  work  for  them 
the  men  must  do  it  themselves.  If  they  had  the  tor- 
pedoes at  the  end  of  long  sticks,  resembling  exag- 
gerated skyrockets,  they  might  thrust  these  into  the 
meshes  and  explode  them  to  gain  the  destructive 
effect  of  shell-bursts.  If  the  artillery  had  made 
some  breaks,  they  might,  in  their  impetuosity  to  keep 
up  with  the  rest  of  the  line,  try  to  pick  their  way. 
What  young  soldiers  can  accomplish  in  this  respect 
is  past  all  comprehension  by  elders  who  try  to  follow 
in  their  steps.  The  first  wonder  is  how  they  were 
able  to  go  through  at  all,  and  the  second  is  how  they 
had  any  flesh  on  their  leg-bones  after  they  had  gone 
through.  Their  main  reliance  was  on  the  hand  wire- 
cutters,  which  had  not  been  improved  since  Cuba  and 
South  Africa. 

All  the  while  that  the  soldier  was  snipping  the 
strands  and  bending  them  back  as  he  crawled  for- 
ward, he  was  usually  too  near  the  trench  to  have  any 
protection  from  the  barrage,  while  from  the  trench 
he  was  a  full-size  target  at  short  range.  War  offers 
no  more  diabolical  suspense  than  to  this  prostrate 
soldier  in  his  patient  groveling  effort,  when  machine- 
gun  fire  is-  turned  in  his  direction.    He  is  in  the  posi- 


WE  BREAK  THROUGH  89 

tion  of  a  man  lashed  to  a  bulls-eye.  Bullets  sing  as 
they  cut  strands  of  wire  around  him.  He  feels  a 
moist  warm  spot  on  his  leg  or  arm  and  knows  that 
he  is  hit.  Perhaps  he  tries  to  apply  the  dressing  to 
the  wound ;  but  more  likely  he  refuses  to  expose  him- 
self by  any  movement  which  will  attract  the  gunner's 
attention.  He  may  be  hit  again  and  again  before  the 
inevitable  final  bullet  brings  the  last  of  his  ghastly 
counted  seconds  of  existence.  The  bones  of  men 
who  were  killed  in  this  way — "  hung  up  "  in  the  wire 
— are  all  along  the  wire  of  the  old  trench  line  from 
Switzerland  to  Flanders.  Or  perhaps,  when  that 
patient  wire-cutter  has  taken  death  for  granted,  the 
machine-gun  suddenly  diverts  its  spray  to  other  tar- 
gets, and  he  is  safe. 

Such  was  the  nature  of  the  barrier  of  entangle- 
ments which  had  to  be  conquered  by  these  young 
divisions  of  ours  before  they  ever  began  fighting. 
Beyond  its  fiendish  and  elaborate  skeins  was  a  trench 
system  equally  elaborate  in  all  its  appointments  for 
the  real  resistance.  German  officers  and  soldiers  in 
occupation  had  taken  all  the  interest  in  improve- 
ments, and  the  more  as  it  concerned  the  safety  of 
their  own  skins,  of  the  most  fastidiously  scientific 
and  progressive  superintendent  of  a  manufacturing 
plant.  The  latest  wrinkles  in  the  development  of 
defensive  warfare  were  promptly  applied.  After 
each  trench  raid  or  enemy  attack,  weak  points  that 


9o  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

had  appeared  were  corrected.  Generals  who  came 
on  inspection  ordered  changes  suggested  by  their 
study  of  the  ground.  Regiments  new  to  a  sector 
brought  fresh  ideas  and  industry.  Work  was  good 
for  German  soldiers,  who  were  kept  digging  and 
building  for  four  years  in  perfecting  the  security  of 
these  intricate  human  warrens. 

Any  trench  system,  after  allowing  for  an  enemy's 
success  in  clearing  the  hurdle  of  the  wire  and  in 
penetrating  the  trench  system,  and  even  for  his  suc- 
cessful occupation  of  considerable  stretches  of  the 
front  line,  relied  upon  "  strong  points  "  and  second 
lines  in  the  maze  of  fortifications  to  make  the  gains 
futile,  or  only  the  prelude  to  a  more  costly  repulse 
than  if  the  attack  had  failed  in  its  first  stage.  Let 
it  be  repeated  that  not  one  out  of  four  of  our  soldiers 
had  ever  before  stormed  a  first-class  fortified  line. 
They  and  their  officers  knew  the  character  of  its 
mazes  only  through  lectures,  pictures,  maps,  and 
imagination;  but  they  were  perfectly  certain  of  one 
thing,  and  that  was  that  their  business  was  to  clean 
the  Germans  out,  and  for  this  they  were  equipped 
with  proper  tools.  In  other  words,  when  you  saw  a 
German  emerging  from  a  deep  dugout  where  he  had 
taken  refuge  from  the  bombardment,  or  appearing 
round  a  traverse,  either  kill  him  or  gather  him  in. 

The  ardor  and  ferocity  of  our  youth  in  a  furious 
offensive  mood  was  never  more  compelling  in  its 


WE  BREAK  THROUGH  91 

results.  Caution  was  not  in  our  lexicon.  If  strong 
points  held  out,  the  thing  was  to  go  through  them. 
There  was  no  time  to  lose.  The  first  wave  must  go 
on  according  to  schedule,  leaving  those  who  followed 
to  do  the  mopping  up  of  details.  Our  faith  was  in 
our  valor  and  destiny.  In  our  progress  the  first-line 
fortifications  were  to  be  only  another  hurdle  after 
the  wire. 

In  the  course  of  this  famous  day,  in  seeking  a 
personal  glimpse  of  every  aspect  of  the  action,  I  was 
at  Army,  Corps,  and  Division  Headquarters  as  the 
news  came  in,  and  I  was  three  miles  beyond  the 
trenches  with  our  advance  against  the  machine-gun 
nests.  Such  a  morning  sun  as  is  rare  in  this  region 
eventually  dissipated  the  thick  mist  which  had  been 
in  our  favor  in  concealing  our  attack  from  enemy 
observation,  and  against  us  in  preventing  our  obser- 
vation of  the  movement  of  our  own  units.  It  kept 
on  shining,  which  was  still  more  rare,  in  all  the 
genial  pervading  warmth  which  we  associate  with  its 
generous  habit  in  this  season  at  home,  until  midday 
found  the  air  singularly  luminous — luminous  for  this 
region— and  the  sky  a  soft  blue.  The  generals  could 
not  have  asked  more;  and  to  the  medical  corps  it 
meant  a  blessing  for  the  wounded.  Judging  by  the 
weather  that  ensued  during  the  remainder  of  the 
battle,  the  point  that  the  sun  of  the  Argonne  ex- 
hausted all  its  beneficence  on  the  first  day  and  had  ta 


92  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

retire  behind  clouds  to  recuperate,  in  order  to  keep 
up  the  reputation  of  "  sunny  France "  for  future 
tourist  seasons,  seems  well  taken. 

Not  only  was  the  infantry  advancing,  but  all  the 
rest  of  the  army,  no  longer  obliged  to  court  conceal- 
ment under  the  cover  of  the  night,  had  come  ag- 
gressively into  the  open,  the  stealthy  processes  of 
preparation  having  given  place  to  the  thrill  of  battle 
joined.  Where  all  efforts  on  preceding  days  had 
been  directed  toward  a  stationary  theater,  now  all 
were  directed  to  a  traveling  theater.  A  mighty- 
organism  of  human  and  metal  machinery,  which  had 
been  assembling  and  tuning  up  its  engines,  had 
thrown  in  the  clutch  and  was  in  motion. 

Considering  the  volume  of  shells  being  fired  at 
the  Germans,  the  columns  of  motor-trucks  loaded 
with  ammunition  now  had  an  intimate  appeal.  The 
front  had  become  a  magnet  drawing  every  thought 
toward  it,  with  every  waiting  ambulance  and  vehicle 
expectant  of  an  order  to  start  forward.  At  the  rear 
there  was  less  traffic  on  the  roads  than  during  the 
period  of  preparation;  but  forward,  close  to  the 
trench  lines,  roads  that  had  been  empty  two  days 
before  were  crowded.  Machine-gun  battalions  in 
reserve  and  batteries  of  artillery  which  had  carried 
out  their  assignment  in  the  preliminary  bombard- 
ment, and  were  moving  forward  to  new  positions 
where  they  could  support  the  advance,  were  demand- 


WE  BREAK  THROUGH  93 

ing  right  of  way  over  divisional  transport,  which  was 
clear  as  to  its  duty  to  keep  as  close  to  the  infantry 
as  orders  would  permit.  The  signal  corps,  unroll- 
ing their  wires,  also  wanted  precedence  in  order  that 
division  headquarters  might  have  information;  and 
the  engineers  had  taken  precedence  over  everybody 
with  the  compelling  argument  that  unless  roads  were 
built  no  traffic  could  move  forward. 

It  was  a  familiar  enough  picture.  To  the  jaded 
observer  of  war  every  glimpse  only  reproduced  some 
scene  which  was  part  of  a  routine  of  which  he  was 
so  weary  that  it  made  him  desire,  if  for  no  other 
reason,  the  realization  of  the  supreme  hope  that  this 
should  be  the  final  offensive  of  the  war.  The  great 
thing,  though  all  the  equipment  and  all  the  system 
seemed  age-old  because  of  their  associations,  was 
that  the  personnel  was  new.  A  new  knight  had 
slipped  into  old  armor,  and  taken  up  the  sword  from 
a  tired  if  experienced  hand.  D'Artagnan  had  ar- 
rived from  Gascony  to  add  his  young  blade  to  the 
blades  of  the  three  Musketeers.  On  the  part  of 
everybody  there  was  still  the  boyish  enthusiasm  of 
the  beginner  in  a  game. 

Hundreds  of  officers  who  had  been  to  staff  schools, 
or  enduring  the  S.  O.  S.  in  fractious  impatience,  now 
for  the  first  time  were  at  the  front — the  front  of  the 
Great  War;  and  with  them  were  all  the  men  of  the 
supply  units,  motor  drivers,  ambulance  drivers,  engi- 


94  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

neer  battalions,  military  police,  whose  one  thought 
was  a  sight  of  that  "  big  show." 

The  French  gunners  looked  on  smiling,  as  a 
middle-aged  woman  smiles  over  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  debutante.  Given  the  hour  of  attack,  they  knew 
by  experience  how  long  it  would  be  before  the  first 
wounded  and  the  first  prisoners  would  come  down 
the  road.  Soldiers  who  had  never  seen  a  German  at 
close  quarters  perhaps  had  taken  the  prisoners;  a 
young  intelligence  officer  might  be  having  his  first 
experience  in  questioning  them.  To  the  French  the 
prisoners  looked  like  all  the  "sales  Boches";  but 
we  were  discovering  their  characteristics  afresh. 
Later  came  the  severely  wounded  on  stretchers 
which  were  slipped  into  the  ambulances  which  bore 
them  away.  By  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  knew 
that  except  for  a  few  strong  points  which  could 
not  hold  out  we  were  through  the  wire  and  through 
that  elaborate  trench  system  and  out  in  the  open, 
and  still  going  on. 


VII 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  INFANTRY 

A  successful  surprise — The  importance  of  traffic  control  in  main- 
taining the  advance — The  "  show  "  in  the  air — How  the  engi- 
neers built  roads — And  traffic  blocked  them — And  colonels 
showed  the  traffic  police  how. 

The  veteran  accepts  his  long  service  as  a  guarantee 
of  efficiency;  the  novice  is  patient  under  instruction 
and  open  to  suggestion.  Our  desire  to  do  every- 
thing in  the  book,  our  painstaking  individual  industry 
under  a  meticulous  discipline,  and  our  willingness 
as  beginners  to  learn  had  served  us  well  before  the 
battle  in  the  concealment  of  our  strength  and  plans 
from  the  enemy.  There  were  so  many  of  us  and 
we  were  so  swift  in  our  onset  that  we  gave  the  enemy 
the  benumbing  shock  which  on  many  occasions  the 
newcomer,  springing  aggressively  into  the  arena,  has 
inflicted  by  a  rain  of  blows  upon  a  hardened  adver- 
sary who  has  appraised  him  too  lightly. 

If  the  Germans  had  made  the  most  of  their  for- 
tifications with  their  customary  skill,  the  dam  might 
have  held  against  the  flood;  for  it  is  the  touch  and 
go  of  impulse  that  decides  in  the  space  of  a  second 
between  docile  hands  up  begging  for  succor  and  a 

95 


96  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

fury  of  resistance  to  the  death.  Suddenly  brought 
to  face  overwhelming  formations,  the  answering 
sense  of  self-preservation  prevailed  in  the  German 
trenches  before  the  German  officers  and  non-com- 
missioned officers,  had  they  been  in  the  mood,  could 
overcome  the  mass  instinct  of  their  men. 

The  French  on  our  left  had  presumably  met  more 
resistance  than  we  in  the  first-line  fortifications. 
Their  attack  was  doubtless  more  professionally 
skillful  than  ours.  Had  they  failed,  for  no  other 
reason  than  that  they  had  fewer  men  to  the  mile, 
the  cost  of  a  repulse  would  have  been  less  for  them 
than  it  would  have  been  for  us.  The  Germans  knew 
that  the  French  were  massing  west  of  the  Argonne, 
and  apparently  accepted  their  attack  as  serious,  while 
they  thought  that  we  would  make  only  a  demonstra- 
tion. We  had  been  right  in  our  anticipation  that 
they  would  not  consider,  for  one  thing,  another 
major  offensive  by  our  army  feasible  so  soon  after 
Saint-Mihiel;  or,  for  another,  that  Marshal  Foch, 
while  he  was  carrying  on  extensive  operations  in 
northern  France,  would  have  the  temerity  or  the 
forces  to  undertake  in  addition  such  an  extensive 
effort  as  that  of  September  26th. 

Despite  the  honor  in  which  open  warfare  was  now 
held,  a  first  line  was  still  a  first  line,  with  its  wire, 
deep  dugouts  and  strong  points,  and  all  the  ap- 
proaches accurately  plotted  by  the  artillery  through 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  INFANTRY     97 

long  practice  in  fire.  A  part  of  it  might  be  readily 
taken  at  any  time  by  thorough  artillery  preparation, 
but  the  victors  in  the  early  offensives  had  suffered 
enormous  toll  of  casualties  from  shell-fire  in  organ- 
izing their  new  positions.  Though  the  short  artil- 
lery preparation,  without  registering,  had  proved 
efficacious  against  the  Germans  on  July  18th  and 
August  8th,  when  they  were  holding  shallow  trenches 
in  ground  which  they  had  won  in  their  spring  offen- 
sives, it  had  not  as  yet  been  tried  by  the  Allies — I 
may  mention  again — over  any  such  length  of  front 
against  the  old  trench  system  as  in  the  Meuse- 
Argonne.  It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  we  were  not 
opposed  in  strong  force,  but,  make  any  qualifica- 
tion you  choose,  by  conquering  twenty  miles  of  first- 
line  fortifications  we  had  won  a  signal  triumph  which 
must  have  been  a  distressing  augury  to  the  German 
command. 

After  our  "  break  through "  there  was  little 
answering  artillery  fire.  We  had  drawn  the  teeth 
of  immediate  artillery  resistance  by  going  through 
to  the  guns.  We  had  captured  many  guns;  others 
were  forced  to  fall  back  to  escape  capture,  and  they, 
or  any  that  were  hurried  forward,  would  have  had 
to  fire,  not  at  a  settled  trench  line,  but  at  infantry 
deployed  and  on  the  move.  Meanwhile  our  infantry 
must  be  driven  to  the  utmost  of  its  capacity  to  make 
the  most  of  the  headway  that  we  had  gained. 


98  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

We  had  also  to  consider  the  dispersion  and  the 
fatigue  which  bring  loss  of  momentum  in  an  attack, 
just  as  a  tidal  wave  spends  itself  in  flowing  inland. 
The  farther  our  infantrymen  went,  the  farther  our 
transport  must  go  to  provide  them  with  rations  and 
ammunition.  Thus  the  ability  of  our  organization 
to  continue  the  advance  after  the  "  break  through  " 
included  the  indispensable  factor  of  efficient  arrange- 
ments at  the  rear.  As  a  division  has  twenty-seven 
thousand  men,  its  daily  food  requirements  are  equal 
to  those  of  a  good-sized  town,  without  including 
small  arms  and  artillery  ammunition  and  other  ma- 
terial. People  at  home  who  were  surprised  at  the 
length  of  time  it  took  a  division  to  march  by  on 
parade,  without  its  artillery  or  transport,  will  have 
some  idea  of  the  road  space  required  for  a  single 
division  fully  equipped  for  action  and  in  motion. 

Behind  the  old  trench  system  traffic  movement 
had  settled  into  a  routine,  under  the  direction  of 
policemen  at  the  crossings,  resembling  that  of  a 
city.  In  our  mobilization  for  the  attack  we  had 
brought,  aside  from  corps  and  army  troops,  nine 
divisions  into  the  Meuse-Argonne  sector.  This  led 
to  the  pressure  which  would  appear  in  suddenly 
trebling  the  traffic  of  a  city.  Though  the  roads  were 
insufficient,  they  were  kept  systematically  in  repair; 
quantities  were  known;  we  were  forming  up  on  a 
definite  line  of  front.    After  the  attack  was  begun, 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  INFANTRY      99 

the  defensive  force  was  falling  back  upon  its  estab- 
lished and  dependable  arrangements  The  offensive 
force — and  this  cannot  be  too  clearly  or  vividly 
stated — had  to  build  a  city,  as  it  were,  by  establish- 
ing new  depots  and  camps,  repairing  old  roads  and 
building  new  roads,  while  traffic  control  in  the  area 
of  advance  was  subject  not  only  to  the  calculable 
requirements  of  a  great  sjreet  parade  in  a  city,  but 
to  the  incalculable  requirements  of  a  great  fire  and 
other  emergencies  which  switch  concentrations  from 
one  street  to  another. 

From  a  ridge  in  the  midst  of  the  old  trench  system 
in  the  center  of  our  line,  the  nature  of  our  task  ap- 
peared as  a  picture,  which  my  observation  in  thread- 
ing my  way  through  the  streams  of  traffic  in  the  rear 
filled  in  with  detail.  Ahead,  except  for  occasional 
groups  and  lines  appearing  and  disappearing  in  the 
wooded,  undulating  landscape,  our  advancing  in- 
fantry seemed  to  have  been  dissipated  into  the  earth. 
Their  part  after  they  were  through  the  fortifications 
I  shall  describe  in  another  chapter.  The  bridge  be- 
tween them  and  the  rear  was  for  the  moment  in 
the  air,  where  Allied  and  German  planes  in  prodigal 
numbers  came  and  went  on  their  errands  of  combat 
and  observation.  In  the  jam  on  the  roads  back  of 
the  trenches,  thousands  of  men,  of  waiting  machine- 
gun  battalions  and  of  stalled  artillery,  and  drivers 
and  helpers  attached  to  traffic  of  all  kinds,  were 


ioo  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

looking  aloft  at  a  "  show  "  which  was  worth  the 
price  of  being  packed  in  darkened  transports,  and 
almost  worth  the  price  of  enduring  army  discipline. 

If  they  might  see  nothing  of  the  battle  going  on 
behind  the  ridge,  they  had  grandstand  seats  for  the 
theatrics  of  war  in  the  air,  staged  on  the  background 
of  the  blue  ceiling  of  heaven.  I  was  not  to  see  the 
like  of  this  scene  again  in  such  bright  sunlight.  The 
most  jaded  veteran  never  failed  to  look  up  at  the 
sound  of  machine-gun  firing,  which  signaled  that  the 
aces  might  be  jousting  overhead.  Would  one  be 
brought  down?  There  might  be  only  an  exchange 
of  bullets  between  planes  in  passing;  then  one  might 
turn  to  give  chase  to  the  other;  or  both  begin 
maneuvering  for  advantage.  In  shimmering  flashes 
the  sunlight  caught  the  turning  wings  of  planes  that 
tumbled  in  a  "  falling  leaf  "  when  at  a  disadvantage, 
caught  the  wings  of  planes  that  were  crippled  and 
falling  to  their  death. 

Duels  were  forgotten  when  a  German  plane  with 
no  Allied  plane  across  its  path  swept  down  toward 
the  huge  inflated  prey  of  an  observation  balloon. 
His  telephone  told  the  observer  in  the  basket  that  it 
was  time  to  take  to  his  parachute.  The  sight  of  the 
figure  of  a  man,  harnessed  to  a  huge  umbrella, 
leisurely  descending  from  a  height  of  a  thousand 
feet,  divided  attention  with  watching  to  see  whether 
or  not  the  gas  within  the  thin  envelope  overhead 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  INFANTRY    101 

broke  into  a  great  ball  of  flame.  If  not,  it  was 
brought  down  to  take  on  its  passenger  again;  and 
it  could  be  lowered  with  incredible  rapidity  for  such 
an  immense  object,  as  the  wire  which  anchored  it 
was  reeled  in  on  the  spinning  reel  on  the  motor- 
truck. There  was  something  very  modern  and  truly 
American  about  a  motor-truck  in  a  column  of  traffic 
towing  a  balloon. 

Most  fortunate  of  all  the  spectators  were  the  men 
with  machine-guns  for  aerial  defense  mounted  on 
trucks.  They  both  observed  and  participated  in  the 
game.  Many  of  them  were  in  action  for  the  first 
time  with  a  new  toy.  They  did  not  propose  to  miss 
any  opportunity  to  make  up  for  having  come  late 
into  the  war. 

'  Haven't  you  learned  the  difference  between  an 
Allied  and  a  German  plane?  You're  shooting  at  an 
Allied  plane,"  an  officer  called  to  a  machine-ganner. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  was  the  reply,  and  he  stopped 
firing. 

'  Why  didn't  you  tell  him  you  couldn't  hit  it  any- 
way?" remarked  a  passing  wounded  man,  after  the 
officer  had  passed  on.  "  But  don't  worry.  If  they^ 
miss  the  plane,  the  bullets  can  still  hit  somebody 
when  they  fall." 

Entranced  as  they  were  by  the  spectacle,  all  the 
men  who  had  to  do  with  the  moving  of  the  wheels 
of  all  the  varieties  of  transport  which  overflowed 


102  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  roads  were  only  the  more  eager  to  press  for- 
ward. The  air  was  not  their  business.  Their  duty- 
was  over  the  ridge  toward  the  front.  The  artiller- 
ists had  particularly  appealing  reasons  for  impa- 
tience, as  we  shall  see.  They  were  using  rugged 
language,  which  relieved  their  steam-pressure  with- 
out changing  the  fact,  which  was  being  burned  into 
the  consciousness  of  the  whole  army,  that  as  surely 
as  a  chain  is  no  stronger  than  its  weakest  link,  a 
road  is  no  stronger  than  any  slough  which  holds  up 
traffic. 

The  engineers  had  no  time  to  spare  for  observing 
blazing  balloons.  Their  labors  in  the  old  trench 
system,  in  contrast  to  the  florid  drama  of  the  air, 
were  a  reminder  of  how  completely  earth-tied  the 
army  was,  and  how  small  a  part  of  its  effort  was 
above  the  earth,  even  in  the  days  when  communiques 
paid  much  attention  to  aces.  For  a  mile  or  more 
every  road  in  the  immediate  rear  of  the  old  French 
trenches  had  been  in  disuse  for  four  years  while  it 
was  being  torn  by  shell-bursts.  For  the  distance 
across  No  Man's  Land,  it  had  become  part  of  the 
sea  of  shell-craters.  On  the  German  side  of  No 
Man's  Land  were  more  trench  chasms,  and  another 
stretch  which  had  been  blasted  in  the  same  fashion 
as  the  French  side. 

Shoveling  would  fill  many  of  the  holes;  but  shovel- 
ing required  labor  when  we  were  short  of  labor, 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  INFANTRY    103 

and  time  when  every  minute  was  precious.  It  was 
increasingly  evident  every  minute,  too,  that  trucks 
that  carry  three  tons,  and  six-inch  mortars,  and 
heavy  caissons  were  not  meant  to  pass  over  any 
piece  of  mended  road  that  had  its  bottom  two  or 
three  feet  below  the  surface.  They  insisted  upon 
finding  the  bottom  and  remaining  there  until  pulled 
out  by  other  traction  than  their  own. 

The  division  engineers  were  supposed  to  keep  on 
the  heels  of  the  infantry,  which  they  did  with  a  gal- 
lantry which  made  amends  for  the  inadequacy  of 
their  numbers  and  material.  Their  efficacy  was  de- 
pendent upon  these  two  features  and  upon  the  pre- 
vision of  the  division  command  in  mastering  the 
problem  beforehand.  There  were  critics  who  said 
that  some  division  staffs  evidently  expected  their 
artillery  and  rolling  kitchens  to  take  wing;  but  the 
division  staffs  produced  by  way  of  answer  the  un- 
failing list  of  written  orders  on  the  subject,  which 
could  not  be  carried  out.  If  the  infantry  were  re- 
pulsed or  checked,  the  engineers  might  share  some 
of  the  fighting,  as  they  had  on  more  than  one  oc- 
casion. There  seemed  to  be  a  universal  apprehen- 
sion, the  engineers  said,  that  an  engineer  might  have 
a  chance  to  sleep  or  rest,  which  would  obviously  ruin 
his  morale.  If,  after  the  infantry  had  passed  on, 
the  enemy  concentrated  the  fire  of  a  battery  on  the 
road-builders,  they  were  not  supposed  to  be  diverted 


104  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

from  their  labor,  but  to  be  prompt  in  filling  new 
shell-craters. 

The  lack  of  material  ready  on  wagons  for  im- 
mediate movement  to  the  front  left  them  to  gather 
what  material  they  could  on  the  spot.  They  could 
hot  use  barbed  wire,  and  in  places  that  seemed  the 
only  thing  in  sight.  They  tore  out  trench  timbers, 
which  often  proved  rotten  from  four  years  in  moist 
earth,  they  gathered  stones  where  stones  could  be 
found  and  used  these  to  make  something  more  solid 
than  loose  earth  turned  by  the  shovel;  and  they 
sent  hurry  calls  to  the  rear  for  trucks  of  material, 
which  themselves  might  be  stalled  on  the  way  for- 
ward in  the  jam  of  waiting  traffic.  The  more 
sticks  and  stones  filled  in  a  bad  spot,  the  more  were 
needed  as  the  earth  underneath  continued  to  yield. 
LWhen  a  truck-driver  saw  that  the  truck  in  front, 
which  belonged  to  his  convoy,  had  passed  through 
a  rut,  he  determined  that  where  his  leader  could  go 
he  could  follow,  and  he  drove  ahead,  cylinders  roar- 
ing with  all  their  horse-power.  When  he  was  stuck, 
he  spurred  them  to  another  effort.  Meanwhile  his 
wheels  were  probably  sinking,  and  he  had  delayed 
the  mending  of  the  break  in  any  satisfactory  way 
while  the  truck  in  front  backed  up  to  put  out  a  tow- 
line,  and  all  hands  in  the  neighborhood  added  their 
muscular  man-power  to  cylinder  horse-power.  The 
Germans  had  raised  in  the  shell-torn  earth  of  the 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  INFANTRY    105 

trench  system  another  barrier  than  that  of  their 
fortifications  to  a  swift  drive  for  their  lines  of  com- 
munication. 

Their  own  limited  opportunities  in  "  passing  the 
buck "  did  not  exclude  the  engineers  from  easing 
their  own  mental,  if  not  physical,  burden  by  remark- 
ing with  acid  intensity  that  a  little  better  traffic  con- 
trol on  the  part  of  some  of  the  people  who  were 
complaining  would  help  matters.  No  one  who  had 
been  along  the  roads  could  deny  that  this  point  was 
well  taken.  If  not  the  experience  of  other  offen- 
sives, our  traffic  demoralization  at  Saint-Mihiel 
should  have  been  a  warning  to  us,  though  most  of 
the  men  who  had  learned  their  lessons  in  that  sector 
were  still  occupied  there.  We  had  the  admirable 
example  of  the  British  transport,  which,  after  con- 
fusion in  the  Somme  battle  resembling  ours  at  Saint- 
Mihiel,  had  developed  in  practice  under  fire  a  system 
which  seemed  automatic. 

The  number  of  guns  and  ammunition-caissons  and 
the  length  of  a  column  of  divisional  transport  were 
calculable  quantities.  Their  order  of  precedence  be- 
hind the  infantry  was  largely  a  settled  formula. 
The  number  of  roads  and  their  state  of  repair  must 
be  known  not  only  on  the  map  but  by  practical  ob- 
servation. Some  were  narrow  country  roads,  which 
would  accommodate  only  "  one-way '  traffic,  and 
others  would  accommodate  traffic  going  both  ways. 


106  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Having  all  these  factors  in  mind,  the  program 
must  include  the  disposition  of  labor  battalions 
where  they  would  be  needed  in  making  prompt  re- 
pairs, when  heavy  trucks  cut  up  roads,  especially 
one-way  dirt  country  roads. 

We  had  written  out  extensive  instructions  for 
traffic  regulation,  which  were  to  be  enforced  by 
military  police  who  were  new  to  the  task  and  insuf- 
ficient in  numbers.  The  same  thing  happened  to  the 
military  police  on  September  26th  as  happened  to 
the  New  York  City  police  during  the  parade  of  the 
27th  Division,  when  the  crowd  broke  through  the 
police  lines  into  the  line  of  march.  In  this  instance, 
when  aggressive  commanders  of  artillery  and  con- 
voys saw  an  opening,  they  made  for  it  without 
regard  to  traffic  regulations,  though  their  ardor  may 
have  meant  only  delay  in  the  end. 

Thus  the  military  police  had  paper  authority 
which  they  could  not  enforce.  Their  minds  were 
kept  in  confusion  by  the  confusion  of  personal  direc- 
tions they  received  from  volunteer  experts.  They 
were  overwhelmed  in  rank;  and  respect  for  rank  had 
been  drilled  and  drilled  into  them.  A  colonel  is  a 
colonel  and  a  mighty  man;  a  lieutenant-colonel  is 
a  mightier  man  than  a  major,  who  in  turn  outranks 
any  captain  in  charge  of  a  section  of  road.  What 
was  the  use  of  proclaiming  a  road  "  one-way,"  when 
a  staff  officer  appeared  and  declared  it  "  two-way  "? 


IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  INFANTRY    107 

What  was  there  to  do  when  another  staff  officer  ap- 
peared with  an  outburst  against  the  disobedience  of 
regulations  that  had  interlocked  traffic  going  both, 
ways  on  this  same  one-way  road? 

This  is  not  saying  that  the  personal  initiative  of 
a  passing  senior  officer  was  not  serviceable,  when  he 
confined  his  effort  to  breaking  a  jam,  without  re- 
organizing the  system  in  one  locality,  and  thereby 
throwing  it  out  of  gear  in  other  localities.  With 
the  best  of  intentions,  colonels  fresh  from  home  who 
had  not  seen  a  large  operation  before  were  particu- 
larly energetic.  Some  of  their  remarks  stirred 
memories  of  Philippine  days  when  the  transport  of 
an  expeditionary  battalion  was  in  difficulties.  The 
burden  of  the  world  was  on  their  shoulders.  When 
they  gave  an  order,  they  wanted  no  suggestive  "  But, 

sir "  from  any  captain  or  major,  though  they 

complained  that  reserve  officers  lacked  both  initia- 
tive and  discipline.  As  each  colonel  departed  in 
the  blissful  consciousness  that  it  had  taken  a  trained 
soldier  to  "  straighten  things  out,"  the  traffic  of- 
ficers, in  the  interval  before  another  appeared  with 
contradictory  orders,  might  indulge  their  sense  of 
humor  with  the  reflection  that  numerous  "  fool 
colonels  "  must  be  wandering  about  France  with  a 
free  hand  in  impressing  their  rank  upon  juniors. 

The  biggest  "  fool  colonel  "  or  general  was  he 
who,  to  avoid  walking,  took  his  car  in  the  early  part 


io8  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

of  the  day  across  the  freshly  made  road  over  the 
trench  system,  thereby  delaying  the  carts  of  machine- 
gun  battalions.  When  his  car  was  stalled,  he  re- 
ceived about  as  much  sympathy  as  the  driver  of  a 
truck  stalled  on  a  road  which  did  not  belong  to  his 
division.  Not  being  a  colonel,  the  driver  might  be 
made  the  public  object  of  language  which  did  not 
consider  rank  or  human  sensibilities. 

In  no  result  was  the  fact  more  evident  than  in 
our  traffic  direction  that  in  making  a  large  army  we 
must  crack  the  mold  of  a  small  army.  In  time  our 
capacity  for  organization  would  make  a  new  mold. 
Meanwhile,  though  it  might  be  applied  at  cross- 
purposes,  our  American  energy,  adaptable,  tireless, 
furious,  and  determined,  must  bring  results.  The 
many  broken-down  trucks  in  ditches  beside  the  road 
were  only  the  inevitable  casualties  of  a  prodigious 
effort.  Let  the  infantrymen  keep  on  advancing;  we 
would  force  their  supplies  up  to  them  in  one  way  or 
another. 


VIII 


THE  FIRST  DAY 


Out  in  the  open — The  enemy  limited  to  passive  defense — And 
relying  on  machine-gunners — Their  elusiveness — Problems  of 
the  offense — Slowing  down — Up  with  the  infantry — Why 
dispersion — Liaison  up,  down,  and  across — How  keep  the  staff 
informed? — The  spent  wave  before  Montfaucon. 

What  of  the  infantry  lost  to  view  in  the  folds  of  the 
landscape?  They  were  confronting  the  originals  of 
the  hills,  woods,  and  ravines,  whose  contours  on 
paper  had  been  the  definite  factor  in  making  plans, 
while  the  character  and  resistance  of  the  enemy  had 
been  the  indefinite  and  ungovernable  quantity.  As 
the  day  advanced,  irregular  pencilings,  reflecting  the 
reports  of  the  progress  of  the  fighters,  moved  for- 
ward on  the  maps  of  the  different  headquarters 
toward  the  heavy  regular  lines  of  the  objectives 
which  were  the  goals  of  our  high  ambition. 

The  loss  of  the  first-line  fortifications  to  the  Ger- 
mans could  not  be  considered  as  serious  as  in  an 
offensive  in  the  first  years  of  the  war.  Even  as  early 
as  the  Verdun  battle,  proponents  of  the  mobile 
school  of  warfare,  who  had  never  been  altogether 
silenced  by  the  engineering  school,  had  advocated  a 
yielding  elastic  defense,  which,   after  drawing  the 

109 


no  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Crown  Prince's  Armies  away  from  their  depots, 
would  counter  by  a  sudden  attack  of  the  gathered 
French  forces;  but  such  a  maneuver  was  too  daring 
and  contrary  to  the  thought  of  the  time,  with  its  de- 
pendence upon  rigid  defense.  Infantry  had  fallen 
into  the  habit  of  feeling  "  undressed  "  and  helpless 
unless  in  trenches.  When  the  soldier  was  forced  into 
the  open,  he  had  hastened  to  hide  his  "  nakedness  " 
in  a  shell-crater,  or  instantly,  in  the  very  rodent  in- 
stinct that  he  had  developed,  set  to  digging  himself 
a  pit.  Since  the  German  offensive  of  March,  191 8, 
all  the  practice  had  been  to  wean  the  infantry  away 
from  settled  defenses  to  the  supple  use  of  light 
artillery,  trench  mortars,  and  machine-gun  units. 
Happily,  as  we  know,  the  basic  training  of  our  in- 
fantry had  been  in  keeping  with  this  idea. 

In  the  palmy  days  of  German  numbers  and  vigor, 
the  German  High  Command  might  have  met  our 
Meuse-Argonne  offensive  by  the  prompt  marshaling 
of  reserves  for  a  decisive  counter-attack  against  our 
extended  forces  with  inadequate  roads  at  their  backs; 
but  if  Ludendorff  realized  the  errors  which  our  fresh 
troops  might  commit  from  inexperience,  we  realized, 
on  our  part,  that  he  was  too  occupied  elsewhere  by 
Allied  attacks  to  consider  any  considerable  aggres- 
sive action  on  our  new  front,  where  his  tactics  must 
have  in  mind,  obviously,  the  protection  with  a  mini- 
mum cost  of  men  and  material  of  his  lines  of  com- 


THE  FIRST  DAY  in 

munication,  in  order  to  assure  a  successful  with- 
drawal from  northern  France  and  Belgium.  With 
our  attack  developed,  his  subordinate  in  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  sector,  in  carrying  out  this  policy,  would 
choose  the  points  where  he  could  gain  the  best 
results  by  concentrating  the  fire  of  the  artillery  at 
his  command,  and  then  depend  upon  the  expert  Ger- 
man machine-gunners  for  defensive  warfare  in  the 
open,  supported  by  such  fragmentary  defense  lines 
as  might  be  hastily  constructed. 

According  to  the  German  intelligence  report  of 
our  operation  at  Saint-Mihiel,  our  staff  work  had 
been  immature,  while  our  line  officers  did  not  know 
how  to  make  the  most  of  our  gains.  Without  con- 
sidering that  at  Saint-Mihiel  we  were  under  orders 
to  stop  on  our  limited  objectives,  and  granting  the 
Germans  their  view,  no  one  will  deny  them  the 
credit  of  knowing  how  to  make  the  most  of  their 
tactical  opportunities.  The  bellows  of  our  accor- 
deon  was  being  drawn  out  as  theirs  was  drawn  in. 
With  every  hundred  yards  of  advance  our  men  were 
farther  from  their  communications.  Reports  were 
accordingly  the  longer  in  reaching  headquarters,  and 
orders  for  future  moves  the  longer  in  reaching  the 
line,  while  those  of  the  Germans,  as  they  fell  back 
on  their  communications,  were  prompt. 

It  was  not  the  first  time  that  they  had  lost  first- 
line  fortifications.    They  knew  by  experience  as  well 


ii2  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

as  observation  what  had  happened  to  their  first  line 
under  the  powerful  initial  assault;  and  they  knew 
what  they  had  to  do,  in  full  dependence  upon  a  staff 
system  trained  in  practice  to  meet  this  as  well  as  the 
other  vicissitudes  of  war.  The  failure  of  their  men 
in  the  front  line  to  stand  to  the  death  was  an  irritat- 
ing exhibition  of  deteriorating  morale,  which  must 
be  taken  into  consideration  not  only  by  the  subor- 
dinate but  the  higher  commands.  Scattered  and 
demoralized  individuals  and  groups,  filtering  back  in 
retreat,  might  be  re-formed,  or  passed  through  ad- 
vancing reserves  to  the  rear  for  reorganization. 
Fresh  machine-gun  units,  which  had  almost  the 
mobility  of  infantry,  could  be  readily  placed  at 
points  already  foreseen  as  most  suitable.  One 
machine-gun  might  hold  up  the  advance  of  a  com- 
pany of  infantry.  The  enemy  was  fully  familiar 
with  the  details  of  a  landscape  studded  with  ideal 
machine-gun  positions,  the  choicest  being  the  edge 
of  a  woods  on  a  hillside  overlooking  an  open 
space. 

Some  of  our  officers  and  men  had  met  German 
machine-gun  practice  in  open  warfare  in  the  Chateau- 
Thierry  campaign  and  at  the  British  front.  As 
others  knew  it  only  under  the  limitations  of  trench 
warfare,  the  resistance  which  they  now  must  face 
was  familiar  to  them  only  through  instruction.  The 
,German  machine-gunner,  having  learned  as  the  sur- 


THE  FIRST  DAY  113 

vivor  of  many  battles  the  art  of  self-preservation  at 
his  adversary's  expense,  would  wait  all  day  and  all 
night  and  even  longer  without  a  shot,  until  his  target 
appeared  in  the  field  of  fire  assigned  to  him;  wait  as 
a  Kentucky  feudsman  waits  behind  a  rock  for  his 
enemy  to  appear  on  a  road.  Each  gun  was  only  one 
in  a  well-plotted  array  covering  all  the  avenues  of 
approach  which  any  attacking  force  must  follow. 
The  guns  disposed  in  front  might  precede  or  wait  on. 
the  guns  in  flank  in  opening  fire. 

There  was  nothing  new  or  wonderful  in  this  ar- 
rangement. Any  soldier  with  a  sense  of  ground  and 
of  natural  combative  strategy  could  work  out  a  plan 
of  interlocking  fire ;  but  the  discipline  and  the  train- 
ing requisite  to  its  proper  execution,  and  the  stubborn 
phlegmatic  bravery  which  sticks  to  a  machine-gun  to 
the  death,  are  not  to  be  found  at  random  on  any 
page  of  a  city  directory  or  social  register.  The 
fact  that  a  gun  had  begun  firing  did  not  mean  that 
it  could  be  immediately  located.  Sometimes  when 
light  conditions  were  right  the  flash  was  visible,  un- 
less the  gunner  had  hung  a  piece  of  bagging,  through 
which  he  could  aim,  to  conceal  the  flash.  The  direc- 
tion of  the  fire  might  be  judged  somewhat  by  sound, 
and  also  by  observing  the  spits  of  dust  in  the  earth 
or  on  the  wall  of  a  building.  Judgment  on  this  score 
was  affected  by  the  proximity  of  the  passing  bullets 
to  the  observer's  person. 


H4  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

The  more  machine-guns  were  firing  from  different 
angles,  the  more  difficult  it  was  to  locate  any  one  of 
them  by  either  method;  and  the  more  influential  the 
human  element.  In  the  midst  of  their  fire  imagina- 
tion easily  multiplied  the  number  of  guns,  which  is 
*>ne  of  the  moral  effects  of  their  use.  When  a  gun 
was  located,  the  gunner  might  slip  back  behind  the 
crest  of  a  ridge,  or  he  might  have  moved  as  a  pre- 
caution, before  he  was  located,  to  another  position 
which  had  been  chosen  as  his  next  berth,  with  pit  and 
camouflage  in  readiness. 

An  experienced  aviator — always  there  is  that 
word  "  experience  "  which  has  no  substitute — might 
detect  a  machine-gun  nest  if  he  flew  low;  but  not  as 
a  rule  in  woods  or  in  bushes,  or  even  in  the  open 
when  covered  with  green  branches.  There  were 
many  machine-gunners  and  relatively  few  aviators. 
If  a  gunner  thought  that  an  aviator  who  flew  low 
had  seen  him,  he  might  have  taken  up  a  new  posi- 
tion before  the  aviator's  information  had  brought 
down  artillery  fire.  The  machine-gunner  was  a 
will-of-the-wisp  with  a  hornet's  sting,  which  could 
be  thrown  a  mile  and  a  half.  Usually  the  price  of 
locating  him  was  casualties  to  the  infantry,  and  still 
more  casualties  before  he  was  taken,  if  he  stood  his 
ground.  If  the  Germans  had  not  enough  machine- 
gjans  back  of  their  first  line  for  a  complete  inter- 
locking defense  on  the  first  day  of  the  battle — and 


THE  FIRST  DAY  115 

they  certainly  had  later — they  aimed  to  place  them 
where  they  could  do  the  most  good. 

Naturally  the  American  Army,  studying  its  chess- 
board, had  taken  into  consideration  the  counter- 
moves  of  the  enemy  which  would  result  from  its 
attack.  Of  course  the  passage  through  the  entangle- 
ments would  lead  to  the  first  dislocations  of  liaison; 
the  storming  of  the  trenches  to  more;  and  the  pas- 
sage over  the  shell-craters  to  still  more.  After  every 
offensive  against  the  trench  system,  officers  had  stud- 
ied how  to  avoid  the  slowing  down  of  the  attack 
after  the  first  line  was  taken.  This  had  led  to  pass- 
ing the  first  wave  promptly  through  the  trenches  and 
leaving  a  second  wave  to  "  mop  up  "  by  "  breach- 
ing "  dugouts  and  cleaning  up  points  of  resistance; 
and  then  to  the  system  of  "  leap-frogging,"  in  which, 
when  the  men  in  front  had  been  weakened  in  num- 
bers by  casualties  and  lost  their  aggressive  cohesion, 
fresh  troops  went  through  them  to  carry  forward 
the  attack.  Reserves  in  passing  through  the  lanes  of 
the  barbed  wire  and  over  the  trenches  and  on  to 
catch  up  with  an  advancing  line  also  suffered  from 
disorganization,  which  might  be  increased  by  strong 
concentrations  of  enemy  shell  and  machine-gun  fire. 

A  division  commander  had  discretion  as  to  how  he 
would  gain  his  objectives,  which  brings  us  into  the 
field  of  tactical  direction,  as  technical  as  it  is  vital  to 
success.     His  dispositions  were  a  test  of  his  knowl- 


"n6  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

edge  of  his  profession,  and  his  handling  of  the  di- 
vision after  it  was  engaged  of  his  qualities  of  gen- 
eralship. In  some  instances  villages  and  strong 
points  were  passed  by  the  main  line  of  advance,  and 
left  to  be  conquered  by  special  attacking  forces.  In- 
structions had  not  only  to  be  elaborate  but  prac- 
tical. 

Those  captains  and  lieutenants,  the  company  and 
platoon  commanders,  who  were  carrying  out  the 
instructions,  must  each  be  a  general  in  his  own 
limited  field.  The  less  experience  his  seniors  had 
in  preparing  practical  instructions,  the  more  he 
might  suffer  for  his  want  of  experience  in  leading 
men  in  battle.  With  the  conquered  trenches  behind 
him,  he  had  to  make  sure  that  his  men  were  in  hand, 
and  if  he  had  been  allowed  no  time  for  reorganiza- 
tion behind  his  shield,  that  was  an  error;  for  bar- 
rages might  move  too  fast,  in  expressing  the  desire 
of  commanders  for  speed.  At  the  same  time,  the  line 
officer  had  to  identify  by  the  map  the  ground  on  his 
front  which  he  was  to  traverse  and  the  positions  he 
was  to  take  as  his  part  in  that  twenty  miles  of  puls- 
ing, weaving,  and  thrusting  line. 

When  you  are  seated  before  a  table  in  calm  sur- 
roundings, trying  to  follow  the  course  of  one  com- 
pany in  an  advance,  you  realize  the  limitations  of 
your  i  to  20,000  map.  It  ought  to  be  1  to  10. 
More  elements  than  any  layman  could  imagine  en- 


THE  FIRST  DAY  117 

tered  into  the  problem  of  the  location  of  the  com- 
mand post  from  which  a  battalion  commander  was 
to  direct  the  movements  of  one  thousand  men,  or  a 
regimental  commander  of  three  thousand,  in  action. 
All  this,  of  course,  represents  sheer  fundamentals  in 
thoroughgoing  military  science;  but  we  must  have 
the  fundamentals  if  we  are  to  appreciate  the  accom- 
plishment of  our  young  army  in  the  Meuse-Argonne 
battle. 

A  prominent  hill  was  easily  recognized.  If  a 
village  were  in  the  line  of  your  attack,  that  was  a 
simple  guide;  but  in  a  region  where,  unlike  our 
country  of  scattered  farmhouses,  the  farmers  all  live 
in  villages,  there  was  a  paucity  of  buildings  which 
might  serve  as  landmarks.  One  of  our  men  ex- 
pressed the  character  of  the  terrain  by  saying  that 
with  every  advance  it  all  looked  alike — hills,  ridges, 
woods,  and  ravines;  yet  when  you  came  close  to  the 
part  which  you  were  to  attack  it  seemed  "  different 
from  any  other  and  a  lot  worse."  We  had  to  cross 
brooks  and  swamps  as  an  incident  to  conquering  the 
other  features  of  the  landscape.  If  we  missed  any 
kind  of  fighting  on  the  first  day  of  the  battle,  it  was 
in  store  for  us  in  the  later  stages. 

Oh,  that  word  liaison!  That  linking  up  of  the 
units  of  the  attack  in  proper  coordination !  Is  there 
any  man  of  the  combat  divisions  who  does  not  know 
its  meaning  or  who  wants  to  hear  it  again?    It  never 


n8  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

came  into  slang  at  home  in  the  same  way  as  camou- 
flage; but  it  is  a  thousand  times  more  suggestive  of 
the  actualities  of  war.  Liaison  between  the  French 
and  the  American  armies,  between  corps,  divisions, 
brigades,  regiments,  battalions,  companies,  platoons, 
squads,  and  individual  soldiers.  Liaison  between  in- 
fantry and  artillery  and  trench  mortars  and  planes 
and  tanks !  If  you  did  not  have  it,  why,  the  adjoin- 
ing commander  might  be  as  much  to  blame  as  you, 
at  least,  and  you  could  say  that  he  was  altogether 
to  blame.  It  may  be  said  that  the  history  of  the 
war  will  be  written  in  terms  of  positions  taken,  and 
of  positions  which  were  not  taken  because  cooperat- 
ing units  failed  to  keep  their  liaison.  They  were  not 
up.  When  I  mention  that  there  were  difficulties  of 
liaison  in  writing  of  any  division,  I  am  not  saying 
who  was  at  fault,  as  no  one  person  was,  perhaps, 
more  than  another. 

Other  generals  might  be  promoted  and  demoted, 
but  General  Liaison  remained  the  supreme  tactician. 
'  Establishing  liaison  "  was  fraught  with  more  heart- 
aches and  brain-aches  than  any  other  military  detail. 
Men  prowled  through  the  night  in  gas-masks  under 
sniping  rifle  and  machine-gun  fire  and  artillery  fire, 
to  ascertain  if  the  unit  supposed  to  be  on  their  flank 
was  there:  perhaps  to  receive  a  greeting  from  an 
officer  hugging  a  fox-hole,  "  Why  aren't  you  fellows 
keeping  up  with  us  ?  " 


THE  FIRST  DAY  119 

Liaison  was  most  difficult  in  woods,  though  the 
fighting  was  not  necessarily  always  the  severest 
there.  Men  naturally  took  to  the  paths  instantly 
they  advanced  into  woods,  and  these,  if  they  were 
not  stopped  by  machine-gun  fire,  advanced  ahead  of 
those  in  the  deep  underbrush.  A  stretch  of  unseen 
wire  might  arrest  a  part  of  the  line,  without  the  men 
in  liaison  on  the  right  and  left,  as  they  plunged 
through  the  thickets,  knowing  that  it  had  been 
stopped.  The  sheer  business  of  keeping  any 
kind  of  formation  was  distracting  enough,  without 
the  sudden  bursts  of  machine-gun  fire,  which  might 
be  so  powerful  that  there  was  nothing  to  do  except 
to  take  cover  and  consider  a  plan  for  silencing  or 
capturing  the  gun.  Unless  the  casualties  were  so 
serious  that  it  was  suicidal  not  to  halt  and  mark  out 
a  plan  for  capturing  the  nest,  and  as  advancing  was 
a  sure  way  of  locating  machine-guns  and  a  prompt 
way  of  overwhelming  them,  we  swept  on  in  the 
spirit  of  our  instructions  and  impatience.  Captured 
machine-guns  littered  the  paths  of  our  battalions,  in 
tribute  to  the  effect  of  our  impetuous  rush  upon 
gunners  who  continued  to  forget  their  orders  to 
stand  to  the  death  when  they  saw  the  tidal  wave  of 
our  soldiers  about  to  swamp  them. 

As  the  day  wore  on  and  the  enemy  began  to  re- 
cover from  the  shock  of  the  surprise  of  our  initial 
onset,  we  encountered  an  increasing  volume  and  fury 


120  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

of  machine-gun  fire  from  hill  to  hill  across  valleys, 
sweeping  down  ravines,  plunging  from  crests  and  by 
indirect  aim  over  crests,  from  village  houses  and 
from  both  directions  where  village  streets  crossed. 
At  critical  points  it  was  supported  by  concentrations 
of  shell-fire.  Along  that  road,  at  the  edge  of  this 
patch  of  woods,  along  that  stretch  of  river  bottom, 
the  German's  artillery  laid  down  barrages  over  a 
space  already  swept  by  bullets,  to  hold  positions  by 
which  he  set  as  much  store  in  his  plans  as  we  in 
ours. 

"Why  aren't  you  getting  on?'  division  com- 
manders asked,  or  tried  to  ask — as  communication 
did  not  always  permit  the  message  to  arrive 
promptly — when  the  pencilings  on  the  map  were  not 
keeping  up  to  the  schedule  of  progress  toward  the 
objectives.  It  was  an  easy  question;  the  answer 
might  be  in  the  lack  of  resolution  of  a  regimental  or 
battalion  commander,  in  the  character  of  the  resist- 
ance to  his  troops,  or  in  their  disorganization  under 
new  and  severe  trials.  After  further  ineffectual  ef- 
forts the  battalion  and  regimental  commanders 
might  say  that  progress  was  impossible  without 
reserves. 

Should  the  division  commander  send  them?  Ex- 
pending his  reserves  on  the  first  day  of  a  long  battle 
might  place  him  in  a  dangerous  position  in  face  of 
a  later  and  graver  emergency;  but  he  had  the  word 


THE  FIRST  DAY  12 r 

of  a  subordinate  that  they  were  necessary.  Had 
that  subordinate  in  his  first  serious  engagement  be- 
come too  readily  discouraged?  What  was  the  ex- 
tent of  his  losses?  They  were  a  criterion  for  judg- 
ing his  balance  of  assets  for  continuing  the  attacks, 
though  they  did  not  include  the  exhaustion  of  the 
men,  their  mood  of  the  moment,  or  the  disruption 
of  liaison  of  their  units. 

The  division  commander  might  sit  rigid  with  the 
front  of  Jove,  which  he  thought  was  the  chief  item 
of  the  military  formula,  and  say:  "I  want  no  ex- 
cuses. Take  the  position!  "  Or  he  might  keep  on 
pressing  in  his  reserves,  in  the  determination  that 
his  division  would  be  up  on  time;  for  Corps  Head- 
quarters were  depending  on  him.  The  pencilings 
moving  toward  the  corps  objective  were  his  record 
in  the  battle.  If  the  pencilings  were  in  a  V-shape, 
that  was  bad.  It  meant  that  some  of  his  elements 
were  in  a  salient,  in  danger  of  being  "  squeezed." 

Sometimes  the  pencilings  were  farther  advanced 
than  the  troops.  The  wish  being  father  to  the 
thought,  observers  who  saw  a  charge  entering  a 
woods  took  it  for  granted  that  it  would  go  through 
the  woods.  Aviators  sometimes  mistook  German 
soldiers  in  movement  for  our  own;  again  they  mis- 
read the  maps,  and  placed  our  troops  on  a  ridge 
ahead  of  their  actual  position.  Company  leaders 
might  make  the  same  mistake.     The  incentive  to 


122  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

"  get  there  "  involved  eagerness  to  send  back  word 
that  you  were  arriving.  A  little  group  of  gallant 
men  who  pushed  through  a  wood  or  gained  a  crest 
might  have  been  swept  back  by  machine-gun  fire  by 
the  time  their  proud  report  had  reached  division 
headquarters.  Instead  of  having  commanding 
ground  as  a  "  jumping-off  place  "  for  the  next  stage 
of  advance,  they  might  be  hugging  the  reverse  slope, 
exposed  to  fire  from  three  sides  immediately  they 
showed  themselves. 

Regular  as  well  as  reserve  officers  who  had  never 
before  been  in  action  were  to  prove  again  that  no 
amount  of  study  of  the  theory  of  war,  invaluable  as 
it  is,  may  teach  a  man  how  to  keep  his  head  in 
handling  a  thousand  or  three  thousand  men  under 
fire.  West  Point  cadet  drill,  Philippine  jungle  and 
"  paddy "  dikes,  Leavenworth  staff  school,  army 
post  routine,  and  border  service  had  no  precedent  of 
experience  for  the  problems  of  maneuver  which  they 
now  had  to  solve.  It  was  all  very  well  to  say  that 
the  men  were  all  right;  but  another  thing  was  keep- 
ing your  men  together.  I  saw  a  regular  colonel 
violating,  in  a  singular  reaction  to  amateurishness, 
the  simplest  principle  of  organization — the  same 
that  keeps  subordinates  informed  of  the  location  of 
a  business  superior — by  having  no  post  of  command 
where  he  or  an  adjutant  could  be  found  with  orders 
or  reports.    Some  colonels  remained  steadily  at  their 


THE  FIRST  DAY  123 

headquarters,  without  absenting  themselves  for  per- 
sonal inspection  in  any  emergency;  others  moved 
restlessly  about  the  field,  trying  to  apply  to  three 
thousand  men  the  personal  direction  of  a  platoon 
commander.  Every  subordinate  who  witnessed  such 
an  exhibition  by  a  superior  was  bound  to  lose  confi- 
dence in  the  command.  I  am  not  thinking  of  a  lack 
of  physical  bravery  when  I  say  that  there  were 
instances  of  colonels  and  brigadiers  voicing  pessi- 
mism in  the  presence  of  subordinates.  They  might 
have  become  good  judges  or  good  philosophers,  but 
they  were  not  meant  by  nature,  at  least  in  their  lack 
of  battle  experience,  to  drive  home  an  ambitious  of- 
fensive movement.  Others  had  too  much  blind 
initiative;  they  were  the  kind  that  would  drive  head 
downward  at  a  stone  wall.  Others  were  amazingly 
cool,  determined,  and  efficient.  These  the  men 
would  follow  against  any  odds. 

Being  human,  our  men  who  symbolized  the  pencil- 
ings  on  the  map  had  muscles  and  nerves  which  were 
subject  to  fatigue.  They  had  no  visualization  of 
their  goals.  If  they  could  have  been  shown  a  flag 
on  a  mountainside,  which  they  must  reach  before 
they  "  knocked  off  "  for  the  day,  the  incentive  for 
keeping  on  would  have  been  more  directly  applied. 
All  they  saw  was  the  slope  or  woods  ahead  of  them. 
Their  knowledge  of  the  battle  plan  was  limited  to 
their  orders  to  keep  on  going.     After  nights  when 


i24  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

suspense    and    suppressed   excitement   had    allowed 


them  little  sleep,  they  had  been  going  all  day  from 
5.30  in  the  morning — going  through  barbed  wire 
and  trenches,  over  uneven  ground,  as  they  fought 
their  way  not  only  under  fire  but  under  the  strain  of 
that  wearing  mental  concentration  of  trying  to  re- 
member and  apply  all  they  had  learned  in  their 
training  and  in  previous  actions. 

Physically,  the  task  set  for  our  troops  had  seemed 
almost  superhuman.  Many  had  taken  enough  steps 
to  cover  in  a  straight  line  twice  the  distance  they 
had  traveled.  To  the  eye  of  a  hurrying  observer, 
these  myriad  figures,  whether  dashing  toward  a 
machine-gun  nest,  or  ducking  to  avoid  an  outburst  of 
fire,  or  coming  wounded  across  the  fields,  had  the 
attraction  of  the  ardor  and  fearlessness  of  youth  in 
battle,  while  they  brought  many  thoughts  which  were 
as  far  from  the  battlefield  as  the  homes  that  had 
sent  them  forth. 

We  might  say  "check!  "  to  the  Germans  if  we 
had  taken  Montfaucon  at  the  end  of  the  first  day. 
Montfaucon  was  the  highest  point  on  our  way  to 
the  Lille-Metz  railway  except  the  Buzancy  heights. 
It  was  visible  from  the  old  first-line  trench  system 
at  Malancourt  and  from  the  Mort  Homme  on 
the  banks  of  the  Meuse,  and  it  looked  forward 
over  the  ground  of  the  projected  second  day's 
advance. 


THE  FIRST  DAY  125 

It  happened  that  I  knew  by  travel  that  day  how 
far  it  was  from  Headquarters  to  the  front  line.  I 
might  feel  as  well  as  appreciate  the  reasons  of  the 
officer  and  the  soldier  for  disappointing  Head- 
quarters when  I  came  to  the  end  of  my  journey, 
where  the  tidal  wave,  expending  itself,  had  left  a 
platoon  of  infantry,  without  touch  with  the  units  on 
their  right  and  left,  washed  up  in  a  sunken  road  on 
the  reverse  slope  of  a  hill  in  front  of  Montfaucon. 
On  the  bare  crest  of  the  hill  lay  the  bodies  of  com- 
rades who  had  fallen  when  the  watchful  German 
machine-gunners  aimed  at  the  human  targets  appear- 
ing in  bold  silhouette  on  the  sky-line.  It  would  have 
been  madness  for  a  handful  of  men  without  support 
to  continue  on  against  such  blasts  of  cross-fire.  They 
had  fallen  back,  bringing  their  wounded,  to  await 
orders.  Apart  from  the  opposition  they  had  met, 
the  irregular  landscape  over  which  they  had  ad- 
vanced was  sufficient  explanation  of  their  inability 
to  keep  their  liaison.  It  made  islands  of  the  hills 
as  it  diverted  the  tidal  wave  into  the  channels  of  the 
ravines.  Scattered  American  soldiers  were  moving 
about  the  neighborhood  like  hunters,  beating  up 
Germans  who  had  taken  cover  among  bushes  and  in 
holes. 

There  was  a  recess  in  the  battle  in  the  vicinity, 
with  stretches  of  several  seconds  when  the  country- 
side   seemed    quite    peaceful.      Then    for    another 


126  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

quarter  of  a  minute,  only  a  single  machine-gun  might 
be  firing  with  deliberately  precise  intervals  between 
shots.  Suddenly  the  whole  pack  broke  into  full  cry 
at  the  sight  of  quarry  on  the  ridge  which  forms  the 
southwestern  approach  to  the  town  from  the  Mont- 
faucon  woods.  We  must  have  this  ridge  before  we 
took  the  town.  As  I  looked  in  this  direction,  I  saw 
a  line  of  our  men  appearing  above  the  crest,  each 
figure  sharp  against  the  light  blue  sky.  Their  inter- 
vals seemed  at  first  as  exact  as  the  teeth  of  a  comb; 
then  the  teeth  began  to  drop  out  as  figures  fell.  For 
a  few  seconds  longer  the  survivors  strove  against 
the  blasts  before  they  drew  back  and  faced  right  and 
moved  along  under  cover  of  the  slope,  apparently 
seeking  a  less  exposed  portion  of  the  crest  for  an- 
other attempt. 

The  machine-gun  fire  died  down  into  spiteful  ir- 
regularity until  the  line  wheeled  again  toward  the 
crest.  Their  heads  were  hardly  above  it  when,  with 
the  unity  of  an  orchestra  answering  the  conductor's 
baton,  the  diabolical  thirring  rattle  began  again  with 
all  its  previous  volume.  Evidently  quite  as  many 
guns  had  this  portion  of  the  ridge  under  their  fire 
as  the  other.  This  time  the  men  did  not  persist. 
In  proper  tactical  wisdom  they  disappeared  from  the 
sky-line  as  quickly  as  a  woodchuck  dodges  into  his 
hole. 

We  had  now  definitely  developed  the  strength  of 


THE  FIRST  DAY  127 

the  enemy  at  this  point.  Possibly  we  had  located 
some  of  his  machine-guns.  At  least,  a  battalion 
commander  had  learned  enough  to  realize  that  he 
must  undertake  a  deliberate  method  adapted  to  the 
situation  for  silencing  them,  which  of  course  meant 
delay  in  pushing  forward  toward  the  day's  objec- 
tive the  pencilings  in  one  small  section  of  the  Head- 
quarters map.  Yet  it  was  such  details  as  this,  re- 
vealed to  me  in  a  pantomime  of  vivid  and  stark 
simplicity  and  brevity,  which  taken  together  made 
the  whole  for  that  abstraction  to  the  soldier  which 
is  called  the  High  Command. 

"  Is  Montfaucon  taken?"  was  the  question  of 
Headquarters  when  I  arrived  there  in  the  evening. 
Some  reports  indicated  that  it  was.  This  part  of 
the  line  was  the  most  extended,  and  its  communi- 
cations accordingly  the  most  uncertain.  There  were 
other  pencilings  on  the  map  which  also  had  to  be 
erased.  If  we  had  not  gained  all  our  objectives,  this 
was  not  saying  that  we  had  not  been  astonishingly 
successful.  Having,  as  it  were,  set  out  ambitiously 
to  take  the  whole  solar  system  between  dawn  and 
darkness,  one  of  the  planets  still  held  out,  with  the 
fixed  star  of  Buzancy  heights  in  the  distance. 

There  might  be  many  small  salients,  but  none  of 
threatening  importance  in  our  new  line.  Despite  the 
uneven  battle  experience  of  our  divisions,  all  had 
done  their  part  magnificently.    Our  gains  were  more 


128 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


than  a  mile  on  our  flank  to  four  miles  in  the  center, 
where  we  had  made  the  bulge  toward  the  summit 
of  the  whale-back.  How  far  had  we  expended  our 
momentum  in  our  initial  onset?  What  was  the 
traffic  situation?    What  of  the  morrow? 


IX 


THE  ATTACK  SLOWS  DOWN' 

The  call  goes  back  for  artillery — And  at  night  for  the  rolling 
kitchens — The  staff  interferes  with  sleep — Our  part  meant  no 
stopping — Keeping  at  the  roads  during  the  night — Montfaucon 
on  the  second  day—Then  drive  for  the  whale-back — Enemy 
resistance  holds  our  exhaustion — Settling  down  in  the  rain  to 
slow  progress. 

Moving  on  their  feet,  with  each  man's  course  his 
road  through  the  trench  system  and  across  the  coun- 
try beyond,  the  infantrymen,  as  they  hourly  in- 
creased their  distance  ahead  of  the  part  of  the  army 
moving  on  wheels,  were  calling  oftener  for  artillery 
than  for  reserves.  They  needed  shells  to  destroy 
machine-gun  nests,  to  silence  enemy  batteries,  and 
to  make  barrages  to  support  their  farther  advance 
as  resistance  began  to  develop.  There  were  equally 
urgent  appeals  for  machine-gun  battalions  to  meet 
the  German  machine-gun  opposition  in  kind.  Their 
spray  of  bullets,  in  indirect  fire  over  the  heads  of 
the  men  in  a  charge,  was  another  form  of  shield, 
the  more  desired  when  the  protection  of  the  artil- 
lery was  lacking. 

The  machine-gunners,  who  called  themselves  the 
'  Suicide   Club,"  were   soldiers  both  of  the  wheel 

129 


i3o  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

and  the  foot.  Their  light  carts  did  not  have  to  wait 
on  the  stout  passageway  over  the  trench  system 
which  even  the  light  artillery  required.  Yet  some 
of  them  had  been  marooned,  to  their  inexpressible 
disgust;  for  it  was  their  part  in  an  emergency  to 
press  on  to  the  firing  line  through  the  shell-fire  which 
may  sweep  the  roads  back  of  the  infantry.  The 
place  of  the  artillery  was  as  near  the  actual  front 
as  orders  and  traffic  jams  would  permit. 

How  the  artillery  chafed  on  the  leash !  Not  only 
duty  but  the  gunner's  promised  land  was  beyond 
the  barrier  of  the  trench  system  which  stayed  his 
progress.  Open  warfare  called  to  him  from  the 
free  sweep  of  the  landscape.  The  seventy-fives  had 
come  into  their  own  again  as  mobile  living  units 
which  would  unlimber  in  the  fields  close  behind  the 
moving  infantry,  instead  of  playing  the  part  of  coast 
artillery  behind  fortifications.  There  would  be  no 
need  to  bother  about  camouflage.  They  would  move 
about  so  rapidly  that  the  enemy  could  not  locate 
them;  or  if  he  did — well,  that  was  all  in  the  game. 
Their  protection  and  the  protection  of  the  infantry 
would  be  in  the  blasts  overwhelming  the  enemy's 
fire. 

"  Why  in  "  the  infantry  was  calling  to  the 

artillery.     "  Why  in "  the  artillery  was  calling 

to  the  engineers.  You  may  fill  out  the  blank  space 
of  this  cry  of  mutually  dependent  units  with  the  kind 


THE  ATTACK  SLOWS  DOWN        131 

of  language  which  was  not  supposed  to  be,  but 
sometimes  was,  used  in  the  presence  of  chaplains. 
The  infantry  changed  the  object  of  their  impatience 
when  night  stopped  them  wherever  the  end  of  that 
long  day's  work  found  them.  They  were  not  think- 
ing of  supporting  artillery  fire  for  the  moment.  The 
late  September  air  was  chill,  the  ground  where  they 
lay  was  cold.  Their  appetites  were  prodigious  from 
their  hard  marching  and  fighting.  Their  hearts  and 
thought  were  in  their  stomachs.  Wasn't  it  the  busi- 
ness of  rolling  kitchens  to  furnish  them  warm  meals? 

It   was   past   supper-time.      Where   in   were 

those  rolling  kitchens?  After  dark  they  surely  need 
not  be  held  back  in  apprehension  of  being  seen  by 
the  enemy's  artillery. 

Night  had  laid  its  supreme  camouflage  over  all 
the  area  of  operations.  Under  its  mantle  an  activity 
as  intense  as  that  of  the  day  must  continue  for  all 
who  supported  the  infantry.  We  might  take  an 
account  of  stock.  Regimental,  battalion,  and  com- 
pany officers  might  move  about  freely  along  the 
front  in  familiarizing  themselves  with  the  situations 
of  their  commands.  Liaison  which  had  been  broken 
between  different  units  must  be  re-established.  The 
ground  ahead  must  be  scouted.  Platoons  and  com- 
panies which  had  become  mixed  with  their  neigh- 
bors, and  individual  men  who  had  strayed  from 
their  units,  must  be  sorted  out  and  returned.     Gaps 


i32  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

in  the  line  must  be  filled;  groups  that  had  become 
"bunched"  must  be  deployed;  groups  whose  initia- 
tive had  carried  them  forward  to  exposed  points 
might  have  to  be  temporarily  withdrawn, — all  by 
feeling  their  way  in  the  darkness.  The  sound  of 
machine-gun  fire  broke  the  silence  at  intervals  as  the 
watchful  enemy  detected  our  movements.  A  shad- 
owy approaching  figure,  who  the  men  hoped  was  the 
welcome  bearer  of  that  warm  meal  from  the  roll- 
ing kitchens,  might  turn  out  to  be  an  officer  who 
directed  that  they  stumble  about  in  woods  and 
ravines  to  some  other  point,  or  creep  forward  in 
the  clammy  dew-moist  grass  with  a  view  to  improv- 
ing our  "  tactical  dispositions,"  which  does  not 
always  improve  the  human  dispositions  of  those 
who  have  to  carry  out  the  orders. 

Army  Headquarters  wanted  information  from 
the  three  Corps  Headquarters.  Each  Corps  wanted 
information  from  its  three  Division  Headquarters, 
which  in  turn  were  not  modest  in  asking  questions 
of  the  weary  fellows  at  the  front.  Exactly  where 
was  your  line?  What  was  the  morale  of  the  men? 
Were  they  receiving  ammunition  and  food?  When 
would  the  guns  be  up?  What  identifications  of  the 
enemy  forces  in  your  sector?  Had  many  machine- 
gun  nests  been  located?  Was  the  enemy  fortifying, 
and  where?  What  was  the  character  of  his  shell- 
fire?      The    high    command    had    to    consider    the 


THE  ATTACK  SLOWS  DOWN        133 

corps  summaries  of  the  answers  in  relation  to  its 
own  news  from  other  sources,  communications  from 
the  French  staff,  reports  from  Army  aviation  and 
artillery,  conjectures  of  the  enemy's  strength  and 
probable  intentions,  and  the  general  situation  ot 
transport  in  the  Army  area  and  the  flow  of  supplies 
from  the  rear. 

The  lack  of  information  on  some  points  was  no 
more  puzzling  than  the  abundance  of  contradictory 
information  on  others.  Staff  heads  must  work  into 
the  small  hours  of  the  morning.  They  might  rest 
after  they  had  arranged  their  program  for  the 
morrow.  The  men  at  the  front  who  were  to  carry 
it  out  were  supposed  to  rest  at  night  to  refresh  them- 
selves for  another  effort  at  dawn.  This  was  a  kindly 
paternal  thought,  but  how,  even  in  the  period  of 
daylight  saving,  they  were  to  find  the  time  for  sleep 
in  the  midst  of  re-forming  their  line  and  answering 
all  those  questions  was  not  indicated.  Whether  they 
slept  or  not,  whether  their  shields  and  food  were 
up  or  not,  they  were  supposed  to  fight  from  dawn 
to  dusk  on  the  27th. 

Our  army,  though  our  situation  perhaps  war- 
ranted it,  might  not  dig  in  along  the  new  line  and 
hold  fast  while  it  recuperated  after  that  long  first 
day.  Other  double  doors  from  Verdun  to  the  sea 
were  about  to  be  swung  open;  other  armies  must 
be  considered.     Indeed  the  decision  in  this  respect 


i34  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

was  not  with  our  army.  In  a  sense  it  was  not  with 
Marshal  Foch,  for  the  forces  which  he  had  set  in 
motion  to  carry  out  his  great  plan  had  already  pre- 
scribed our  part,  as  we  know.  On  September  28th 
the  Franco-Belgians  were  to  attack  in  Flanders,  and 
Mangin's  army  was  to  move  on  Malmaison;  on  the 
29th  the  Anglo-French  armies,  including  our  Second 
Corps,  were  to  storm  the  Hindenburg  line  in  the 
Cambrai-St.-Quentin  sector;  on  September  30th 
Berthelot  was  to  free  Rheims  from  the  west;  and  on 
October  3rd,  Gouraud,  with  our  2nd  Division,  was 
to  storm  the  old  trench  system  east  of  Rheims.  We 
must  hold  off  reserves  from  their  fronts.  The  more 
determined  were  our  attacks,  the  more  ground  we 
gained  on  the  way  to  the  Lille-Metz  railroad  in  this 
critical  stage  of  Allied  strategy,  the  more  perturbed 
would  be  the  enemy's  councils  in  adjusting  his  com- 
binations to  deal  with  the  other  offensives.  Though 
it  might  have  been  better  for  us  to  have  taken  two 
or  three  days  in  which  to  gather  and  reorganize 
deliberately  our  forces  for  another  powerful  rush 
which  would  have  been  a  corresponding  shock  to  the 
enemy,  this  was  no  more  in  the  psychology  than  in 
the  calculations  of  the  moment.  We  were  winning; 
we  meant  to  keep  up  the  winning  spirit  of  our 
army.  What  we  had  done  one  day  we  should  do 
the  next.  We  and  not  the  Germans  must  take  pos- 
session of  the  commanding  position  of  Montfaucon 


THE  ATTACK  SLOWS  DOWN        135 

as  the  first  great  step  in  gaining  the  heights  of  the 
whale-back,  should  their  resistance  require  delay  in 
reaching  our  goal. 

Leaving  the  account  of  each  Corps'  and  division's 
part  in  its  sector  to  future  chapters,  I  shall  conclude 
this  chapter  with  the  results  of  the  fighting  of  our 
army  as  a  whole  for  the  succeeding  days  to  October 
1st,  when  we  were  to  realize  that  Saint-Mihiel  was 
the  quick  victory  of  a  field  maneuver  compared  to 
the    realism    of   war   at    its    worst    in   the    Meuse- 
Argonne.     When  night  fell  on  the  27th,  our  trans- 
port direction  appreciated  still  more  pregnantly  the 
limitations  of  our  roads  for  our  deep  concentrations. 
Each  road,  where  it  passed  over  the  old  chasms  of 
the  trenches, — where  the  rats  now  had  the  dugouts 
to  themselves,  and  the  silence  of  a  deserted  village 
prevailed  except  for  the  rumble  of  the  struggling 
trucks  over  the  new  causeways — was  pumping  the 
blood  from  the  veins  of  the  by-roads  to  the  rear, 
through  its  over-worked  valves,  into  the  spreading 
arterial  system  of  the  by-roads  in  the  field  of  ad- 
vance.    Once  on  the  other  side,  the  drivers  felt  the 
relief  of  a  man  extricated  from  the  pressure  of  a 
crowd  at  a   gate,   who   finds   himself  in  the   open. 
Lights  being  forbidden,  night  was  less  of  a  blessing 
and  more  of  a  handicap  to  the  transport  than  to  the 
infantry.     The  argument  that  it  secured  the  roads 
from  observation,  which  might  mean  artillery  con- 


136  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

centrations,  had  little  appeal  to  the  average  army 
chauffeur.  He  was  not  worried  about  shell-fire.  If 
he  had  not  been  under  it  before,  he  was  curious  to 
know  what  it  was  like. 

Darkness  only  made  road  repairs  more  onerous 
and  slow.  The  engineers  could  not  see  to  gather 
material  or  where  to  place  it  to  do  the  most  good. 
Unexpected  difficulties  appeared  in  the  midst  of  the 
shadows  of  men  and  vehicles.  The  most  calculating 
of  staff  heads,  who  wished  to  neglect  no  detail  in 
his  instructions,  had  not  suggested  that  anyone  con- 
nected with  artillery,  signals,  or  transport  should 
sleep  until  he  had  overtaken  the  infantry,  except  as 
drivers  might  take  cat-naps  between  the  fitful  pul- 
sations of  traffic.  Men  at  the  rear  who  were  mere 
passengers  waiting  on  others  to  clear  the  way  felt 
a  certain  disloyalty  if  they  slept  in  the  face  of  the 
hurry  call  from  the  front. 

The  partisanship  of  the  spectators  "  pulling  "  for 
the  home  team  is  a  faint  comparison  with  the  par- 
tisanship of  war,  with  comrades  asking  for  more 
than  your  cheers.  The  cry  of  "  Come  on!  Take 
hold  here!  "  in  the  darkness  would  instantly  awaken 
any  man,  nodding  in  his  seat  on  a  caisson  or  truck, 
into  welcome  action.  Now  he  had  a  chance  really 
to  help,  instead  of  exercising  telepathic  pressure  on 
the  Germans.  He  ceased  to  feel  that  he  was  a 
slacker.    Shoulders  to  the  wheel  with  the  last  ounce 


THE  ATTACK  SLOWS  DOWN        137 

of  your  strength!  Timbers  taken  out  of  dugouts, 
stones  dug  out  of  the  earth  with  bare  hands  to  be 
filled  into  sloughs!  Break  a  way,  make  a  way, — 
but  "  get  there  !  " 

As  a  people,  when  we  want  something  done  in  a 
hurry,  we  are  no  more  inclined  to  count  the  cost 
than  to  stint  our  efforts.  Ditched  trucks  and  caissons 
were  the  casualties  of  the  charge  of  our  transport, 
which  was  no  less  furious  in  spirit  than  that  of  our 
infantry.  Moving  a  broken-down  truck  off  the  road 
of  course  meant  delay  for  the  trucks  behind  it;  and 
it  meant,  too,  that  someone  at  the  front  would  be 
asking  in  vain  for  the  supplies  that  it  carried.  But 
that  pitcher  of  milk  was  spilled;  on  to  the  market 
with  other  pitchers. 

Anyone  who  thought  that  the  going  would  be  easy 
or  troubles  cease  on  the  other  side  of  the  old  trench 
system  was  soon  disillusioned.  The  Germans  had 
blown  up  some  roads  as  well  as  bridges.  Our  own 
shells  in  the  preliminary  bombardment  had  made 
shell-craters  and  dropped  trees  as  obstacles.  We 
must  not  forget  that  for  four  years  there  had  been 
a  belt  three  or  four  miles  wide  beyond  the  old 
trench  system  from  which  any  but  army  life  had 
been  excluded.  No  roads  had  been  kept  up  except 
those  which  served  a  military  purpose.  The  Ger- 
mans, partly  because  of  their  rubber  famine,  had 
depended    largely    on    light    railways    rather    than 


138  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

motor-trucks  for  sending  up  supplies.  Where  they 
did  not  use  a  main  road,  it  was  of  no  interest  to 
them  how  far  it  had  fallen  into  disrepair.  Maps 
did  not  take  bad  spots  into  account,  and  aerial  scout- 
ing did  not  reveal  them. 

Dirt  country  roads  had  been  utterly  neglected. 
We  must  use  them  all  to  meet  the  demands  of  our 
immense  force.  Our  heavy  trucks  and  artillery 
wheels  soon  cut  them  with  deep  ruts.  When  the 
engineers  were  not  on  hand,  each  battery  and  convoy 
negotiated  a  passage  for  itself  and  left  those  in  the 
rear  to  do  the  same.  Freshets  had  washed  out  some 
sections,  and  undermined  others.  Embankments  had 
fallen  away  into  swamps,  where  a  side-slipping 
truck  would  sink  in  up  to  its  hubs.  If  shoulders  to 
the  wheel  failed  when  artillery  striking  across  fields 
ran  into  ditches  and  holes,  snatch  ropes  were  used. 

Each  convoy  must  locate  the  unit  which  it  was 
serving.  The  rolling  kitchens  that  had  worked 
their  way  forward  could  not  deliver  their  warm 
meals  until  they  had  found  the  impatiently  ravenous 
troops.  Artillery  commanders  must  grope  about  for 
their  assigned  positions,  or  wait  until  they  were 
assigned  positions.  They  must  have  their  ammuni- 
tion as  well  as  guns  up.  Officers  bearing  instruc- 
tions from  the  staff  were  as  puzzled  as  the  recipient 
about  their  meaning,  as  they  studied  the  map  by 
the  discreet  flash  of  an  electric  torch,  and  sought  to 


THE  ATTACK  SLOWS  DOWN        139 

identify  landmarks  shrouded  in  the  thick  night  mist 
under  the  canopy  of  darkness.  Lightly  wounded 
men  moved  counter  to  the  streams  of  traffic  and  of 
reserves,  who  might  also  be  uncertain  of  their  exact 
destination.  Men  with  bad  wounds  in  the  body 
tottered  across  the  fields  and  dropped  by  the  road- 
side. Others  who  could  not  move  must  be  found 
and  brought  in  by  searchers. 

It  was  not  surprising  that  some  of  our  leaders  had 
not  yet  learned  to  apply  in  the  stress  of  action  and 
the  conflict  of  reports  the  principle  that  when  com- 
mitted to  one  plan  it  is  better  to  go  through  with  it 
than  to  create  confusion  by  inaugurating  another 
which  may  seem  better.  Half-executed  orders  were 
countermanded  and  changed  and  then  changed 
again;  and  this  led  to  trucks  trying  to  turn  round 
in  the  narrow  roads,  and  to  eddies  in  that  confused 
scene  of  the  hectic  striving  of  each  man  and  unit  to 
do  his  part.  The  effect  suggested  a  premature 
dress  rehearsal  of  a  play  on  a  stage  without  lights, 
while  the  stage-hands  were  short  of  sets  and  the 
actors  were  still  dependent  upon  reading  their  parts. 

When  morning  came,  few  rolling  kitchens  indeed 
had  reached  the  objective  of  the  men's  stomachs 
with  their  cargo.  Our  heavy  artillery  was  still 
struggling  in  the  rear.  Only  a  portion  of  our  light 
artillery  was  up.  Where  our  troops  were  fresh  on 
the  first  day,  they  were  now  already  tired.     The 


i4o  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Germans  had  made  the  most  of  the  night.  Their 
reserves  which  had  arrived  included  the  5th  Guard 
Division,  already  on  the  way  when  we  began  the 
battle.  We  needed  our  heavy  artillery  to  pound 
roads  and  villages,  and  to  counter  artillery  which 
the  Germans  had  brought  into  action.  Against  the 
increase  of  German  machine-guns  we  needed  the 
rolling  barrages  of  our  light  artillery  even  more 
than  on  the  first  day  after  we  were  through  the 
trench  system.  Renewing  the  attack  over  the  full 
length  of  our  twenty  miles  of  front,  we  were  to 
advance  with  our  moving  shields  irregularly  dis- 
tributed and  vulnerable  in  most  places.  Any  ob- 
server could  see  soon  after  daylight,  in  the  wide- 
spread puffs  of  German  shells  on  the  landscape,  that 
the  inevitable  had  happened,  as  in  all  previous  offen- 
sives. The  enemy  artillery  had  other  targets  than 
our  infantry;  he  was  laying  a  barrier  to  the  infan- 
try's support  on  the  roads,  halting  the  columns  of 
traffic,  forcing  reserves  to  cover,  and  making  new 
shell-holes  in  the  roads  to  be  filled  by  the  transport 
and  engineer  workers. 

The  important  thing  on  the  second  day  was  to 
take  Montfaucon.  On  the  ridges  west  of  the  town 
the  German  infantry,  artillery,  and  machine-gunners 
were  utilizing  the  positions  which  he  had  laid  out 
months  before  the  attack.  He  fought  stubbornly 
here   as   in   Cuisy  Wood   and   on   the  hills   on   the 


THE  ATTACK  SLOWS  DOWN        141 

left;  but  buffeted  as  they  were,  our  men,  under  firm 
orders  to  keep  on  attacking,  conquered  both  sys- 
tems. This  cracked  the  shell  of  the  Montfaucon 
defenses.    Before  noon  we  were  in  the  town. 

There  are  those  who  say  that  if  we  had  taken 
Montfaucon  on  the  first  day,  we  might  have  reached 
the  crest  of  the  whale-back  itself  on  the  second  or 
third  day,  and  looked  down  on  the  apron  sweeping 
toward  the  Lille-Metz  railway.  I  fear  that  they 
belong  to  the  school  of  "  ifs,"  which  may  write 
military  history  in  endless  and  self-entertaining  con- 
jecture. They  forget  the  lack  of  road  repairs;  the 
lack  of  shields  to  continue  the  advance;  and  the 
interdictory  shell-fire  which  the  enemy  laid  down  on 
the  ruins  of  the  town  and  on  the  arterial  roads  which 
center  there.  If  we  had  taken  Montfaucon  on  the 
first  day,  I  think  that  there  would  still  have  been 
a  number  of  other  "  ifs  "  between  us  and  the  crest. 
Of  course,  once  we  possessed  Montfaucon  and  its 
adjoining  heights,  the  enemy's  infantry  was  not 
going  to  resist  in  down-hill  fighting,  though  he 
harassed  us  with  artillery  and  machine-gun  fire  as 
we  descended  the  irregular  slopes  of  the  valleys 
beyond. 

Our  ambition  was  soaring  for  a  decisive  success 
on  the  28th.  We  had  been  delayed  a  day,  but  we 
should  yet  carry  through  our  daring  programme. 
Forced  optimism  saw  our  field  artillery  coming  up, 


142  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

our  roads  improving,  our  transport  somewhat  more 
systematized,  and  tried  to  forget  other  factors;  but 
the  fatigue  of  all  hands  was  greater;  the  vitality  of 
our  troops  was  weakening  for  want  of  proper  food. 
Our  heavy  artillery,  and  indeed  some  of  our  light 
artillery,  was  still  struggling  in  the  rear.  Our  artil- 
lery ammunition  supply  was  insufficient  to  feed  the 
guns  all  the  shells  they  would  need  when  dawn 
proved  that  the  Germans  had  brought  up  still 
more  artillery  on  the  second  night.  There  were  the 
heights  of  the  whale-back  before  us,  with  the  first 
great  step  in  their  conquest  behind  us.  Attack  was 
the  thing,  attack  from  the  Forest's  edge  to  the 
Meuse.  The  more  time  we  gave  the  enemy,  the 
more  time  he  would  have  to  fortify  and  bring  up 
reserves.  Necessity  accepted  no  excuses  from 
subordinate  commanders.  Drive,  and  again  drive; 
keep  moving;  the  enemy  would  eventually  yield.  He 
must  yield.  Once  we  broke  his  resistance,  then  the 
going  would  be  swift  and  easy  against  his  shattered 
units. 

The  28th  was  a  critical  day:  the  day  when  it  was 
to  be  decided  whether  or  not  we  were  to  fight  a 
siege  operation,  or  to  carry  the  whale-back  in  a 
series  of  rapidly  succeeding  rushes, — though  I  think 
that  the  decision  really  came  with  the  signs  of  devel- 
oping resistance  on  the  morning  of  the  27th. 

Our  divisions  put  in  their  fresh  reserves;  they 


THE  ATTACK  SLOWS  DOWN        143 

would  admit  no  word  of  discouragement.  Artillery- 
men who  had  been  at  work  for  two  nights  and  two 
days  tried  to  bring  their  guns  close  up  to  the  infan- 
try. All  the  remaining  tanks  were  called  into 
service.  With  the  forced  burst  of  energy  which  may 
be  mistaken  for  "  second  wind,"  we  everywhere 
made  gains.  Our  right  had  moved  along  the  Meuse 
to  south  of  Brieulles,  which  with  the  bend  of  the 
river  westward  narrowed  our  front.  On  the  left 
we  had  reached  Exermont  ravine.  On  the  29th  we 
tried  for  Brieulles;  for  Gesnes;  for  the  ravine;  and 
for  the  escarpments  of  the  Forest,  points  which  the 
attack  of  the  third  day  had  developed  as  the  locked 
doors  which  we  must  smash  through  to  give  us  pur- 
chase for  another  general  attack.  There  was  a  cer- 
tain fifulness  in  these  efforts,  as  of  a  fire  dying  down 
blown  into  a  spitful  flame.  In  the  trough  of  the 
Aire  we  were  under  the  raging  artillery  fire  from 
the  heights  on  either  side;  and  in  the  trough  of  the 
Meuse  from  the  heights  across  the  river  and  from 
the  whale-back,  which  I  shall  describe  in  later  chap- 
ters. In  the  valleys  beyond  Montfaucon  and  the 
neighboring  heights  we  faced  the  first  slopes  of  the 
whale-back,  which  were  the  covering  positions  for 
the  Kriemhilde  and  Freya  Stellungen,  new  trench 
systems  utilizing  all  the  natural  strength  of  the 
heights  as  a  main  line  of  defense  by  an  aroused 
enemy  in  strong  force. 


i44  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Our  army  might  now  take  counsel  of  necessity,  if 
not  of  prudence.  In  the  future  we  must  hack  and 
stab  our  way.  Meanwhile  we  must  have  rest  for 
the  tired  troops,  or  we  must  have  fresh  troops,  be- 
fore another  considerable  offensive  effort.  A  hun- 
dred millions  of  population  at  home  did  not  mean 
that  we  had  unlimited  trained  man-power  to  draw 
on  in  France.  Our  divisional  reserves  were  ex- 
hausted. Replacements  were  not  arriving  in  suffi- 
cient numbers  to  fill  gaps  from  casualties  and  sick- 
ness. We  were  not  only  fighting  from  the  Meuse 
to  the  Argonne  and  holding  the  line  of  our  new 
front  at  Saint-Mihiel,  but  we  had  four  excellent 
fresh  divisions  just  going  into  attack  in  British  and 
French  offensives,  not  to  mention  our  divisions  in 
tranquil  sectors.  If  we  had  had  more  men  for  the 
front,  we  could  not  have  fed  them.  If  we  had  made 
a  farther  advance,  we  could  not  have  kept  our 
artillery  and  transport  up  with  the  troops.  We 
needed  more  motor-trucks,  horses,  and  every  kind 
of  equipment  for  that  insatiable  maw.  If  we  had 
had  more  transport,  we  should  hardly  have  had 
room  for  it.  The  arterial  road  facilities  over  the 
old  trench  system  were  as  yet  unequal  to  caring  for 
the  number  of  our  troops.  The  bottle  necks  could 
not  meet  the  demands  of  the  bottle.  Our  appetite 
for  victory  had  exceeded  our  digestion. 

Army  reports  which  spoke  of  "  poor  visibility  " 


THE  ATTACK  SLOWS  DOWN        145 

referred  to  the  morale  of  the  men  as  "  excellent." 
There  was  no  question  of  the  "poor  visibility"  or 
of  the  morale  of  men  who  were  well  enough  to  be 
in  line,  for  they  were  always  ready  to  fight.  The 
chill  October  rains  had  begun.  We  could  expect 
little  more  fair  weather.  When,  already,  one 
needed  a  heavy  blanket  over  him  in  bed,  our  men 
sent  into  action,  for  mobility's  sake,  without  blankets 
were  shivering  at  night  on  the  wet  ground,  not  under 
the  roof  of  the  stars  but  in  the  penetrating  cold 
mist  which  hugged  the  earth  when  it  was  not  rain- 
ing. This  and  the  lack  of  proper  food  and  of 
sleep  brought  on  diarrhea,  and  the  pitiful  sight  on 
the  roads  of  the  sick  and  gassed  was  a  reminder  of 
how  quickly  war  may  wreck  the  delicate  human 
machine  which  takes  so  long  to  build.  In  a  few  days 
sturdy  youth  with  springy  steps  in  the  pink  of 
health  had  become  pale  and  emaciated,  looking  ten 
years  older  as  they  dragged  their  feet  in  painful 
slowness. 

Some  divisions  had  suffered  more  exhaustion  than 
others.  All  their  reserves  had  been  crowded  in  to 
meet  an  emergency.  They  had  given  to  the  limit 
of  their  strength  in  a  few  days,  while  others  might 
spread  theirs  over  weeks.  At  close  quarters  with 
the  enemy  we  dug  in,  with  machine-gun  nests  and 
defensive  lines  of  our  own  to  repulse  his  counter- 
attacks, while  the  message  of  our  own  piecemeal  at- 


146  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

tacks,  by  which  we  sought  to  maintain  our  personal 
mastery  over  him,  was:  "We  are  only  gathering 
our  strength.  This  is  our  battle.  We  are  coming 
at  you  again — soon."  Thus  established  in  our 
gains,  in  temporary  stalemate,  we  might  withdraw 
some  divisions  for  rest.  This  meant  fewer  mouths 
to  feed,  lessening  the  strain  on  our  transport. 
Other  divisions  had  rest  by  the  alternate  with- 
drawal of  regiments  and  brigades. 


BY  THE  RIGHT  FLANK 

Two  weeks  of  reconnaissance  by  the  33rd  on  the  right — Surprising 
the  enemy  by  charging  through  a  swamp — Careful  planning 
gives  complete  success  by  noon — Nothing  more  but  build  a 
road  and  wait — Two  belts  of  woods  in  front  of  the  80th — 
The  enemy  must  hold  at  the  second  belt — Which  he  does  with 
enfilade  artillery,  gas,  and  a  counter-attack  from  Brieulles — 
More  artillery  support  necessary  before  the  defenses  of  the 
town,  beyond  the  belts,  could  be  taken — The  4th  does  its  first 
bit  in  workmanlike  fashion — But  cannot  get  beyond  the  foot 
of  the  whale-back  without  its  stalled  artillery — The  Corps 
digs  in  as  it  can  and  waits. 

By  the  right  flank,  left  flank,  and  center!  Every 
action,  whether  fought  by  a  thousand  or  a  million 
men,  resolves  itself  into  these  simple  elements  of 
strategic  control,  which  is  as  old  as  war.  In  our 
Meuse-Argonne  drive  the  right  and  left  flanks 
elbowed  their  way  down  the  two  river  valleys  to 
the  conquest  of  the  approaches  on  either  side  of  the 
heights  of  the  whale-back,  which  the  center  was  at- 
tacking in  front.  To  think  in  these  terms  is  to  think 
in  Corps;  and  to  think  in  Corps  is  to  think  in  divi- 
sions. 

On  the  right  of  Bullard's  Third  Corps  in  the 
trough  of  the  Meuse  was  the  33rd  Division,  Illinois 
National  Guard.    It  was  the  first  American  division 

147 


148  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

to  arrive  on  the  Meuse-Argonne  line,  taking  Sep- 
tember 7th-9th  from  a  French  division  the  sector 
which  our  whole  Third  Corps  was  later  to  occupy. 
A  single  American  division  assigned  to  such  a  broad 
front  of  quiet  trenches  would  not  arouse  the  enemy's 
suspicions  that  we  were  planning  a  major  offensive. 
On  the  contrary,  it  might  be  an  excellent  mask  for 
our  battle  preparations. 

Thus  the  33rd  had  two  weeks  of  actual  trench 
occupation  in  which  to  familiarize  itself  with  the 
enemy  positions.  These  resourceful  Illinois  men, 
who  had  seen  much  and  learned  much  in  having 
already  served  with  a  British,  an  Australian,  a 
French,  and  an  American  Corps,  were  just  the  kind 
to  make  the  most  of  their  advantage,  being  naturally 
of  an  inquiring  mind  and  not  timid,  though  shrewd, 
in  their  methods  of  inquiry.  Before  the  attack,  in 
making  room  for  the  other  two  divisions  of  the 
Corps  in  their  stealthy  approach,  they  were  side- 
slipped to  the  right,  where  they  faced  the  river  bot- 
toms of  the  Meuse.  At  their  back  was  the  scarred 
slope  of  the  Mort  Homme,  and  in  their  sight  were 
the  other  famous  hills  of  the  Verdun  battle. 

The  mission  of  the  33rd  was  as  picturesque  and 
appealing  as  its  surroundings.  As  the  hinge  of  the 
whole  movement,  on  the  pivot  of  the  river  bank,  it 
was  to  swing  round  in  a  half  circle  until  its  front 
was  secured  on  the  Meuse,  at  a  right  angle  to  the 


BY  THE  RIGHT  FLANK  149 

German  front  line  on  the  opposite  bank.  This  was 
to  be  accomplished  by  noon,  after  which  the  33rd 
had  only  to  dig  in  and  hold  fast.  My  reference 
elsewhere  to  the  difficulty  of  maneuvering  troops 
even  in  face  of  no  opposition  particularly  applies  to 
this  sweeping  right  wheel.  There  was  the  Forges 
brook,  as  well  as  the  trench  systems  to  cross.  On 
the  right  of  the  line  was  the  Forges  Wood,  and  on 
the  left  was  the  Jure  Wood,  which  gave  cover  for 
machine-guns,  if  they  were  not  overcome,  to  play  a 
flanking  fire  on  the  center.  Forges  Wood  was  the 
real  problem.  Its  machine-gun  nests  were  protected 
by  formidable  defenses  where  the  Germans  thought 
them  necessary.  At  other  points  they  depended 
upon  morasses  which  they  thought  impassable;  and 
they  knew  the  river  bottoms  thoroughly  as  their 
avenue  of  advance  in  their  repeated  attacks  for  the 
mastery  of  the  Mort  Homme  in  the  Verdun  battle. 
However,  the  inquiring  Illinois  men  made  their  own 
investigations  most  thoroughly,  if  covertly,  without 
accepting  the  reputation  of  German  thoroughness  as 
a  guarantee  that  there  were  no  openings. 

As  a  result  they  not  only  disagreed  with  the  Ger- 
man view,  but  took  counsel  of  their  conviction  in 
strategy  which  was  to  lull  the  enemy  in  his  own  con- 
viction of  his  security  and  of  their  amateurishness. 
They  had  time  to  work  out  the  plan  by  thorough 
instruction  in  every  detail.     In  the  first  stage  of  the 


150  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

advance  they  had  to  descend  a  steep  slope  and  cross 
the  Forges  brook.  There  they  were  to  halt  on  a 
road  on  the  other  side  of  No  Man's  Land,  to  form 
up  for  the  final  act  any  units  that  had  been  delayed 
or  become  mixed.  Being  an  accurate,  card-index 
kind  of  division,  the  33rd's  records  show  that  the 
road  was  reached  in  fifty-seven  minutes,  and  that  at 
the  end  of  twenty  minutes  every  man  was  in  his 
place  according  to  schedule. 

With  the  left  regiment  swinging  past  the  Forges 
Wood,  this  might  have  exposed  its  flank,  if  the  ac- 
tion of  the  right  had  not  been  properly  timed;  for 
everything  depended  upon  each  unit  carrying  out  its 
part  in  the  team-work  punctually.  Charging  up  to 
their  hips  in  slime  and  up  to  their  necks  in  water, 
the  Illinois  men  proved  that  the  swamps  were 
not  impassable.  They  took  duckboards  from  the 
trenches  and  threw  them  over  the  stretches  of 
barbed  wire  which  protected  the  Wood  where  the 
swamps  did  not.  Just  as  the  defenders  of  the  Wood 
were  turning  their  machine-guns  on  the  targets  on 
their  flanks,  the  right  regiment  "  jumped  "  them  in 
front.  This  gave  them  an  opportunity  for  to-the- 
death  resistance  by  firing  in  two  directions;  but  they 
were  too  confused  in  the  shattering  of  all  their  pre- 
conceptions to  make  use  of  it  in  face  of  those  mud- 
plastered  Americans  springing  bolt  into  their  midst. 
They  yielded  readily.     The  swinging  left  had  put 


BY  THE  RIGHT  FLANK  15  r 

the  Jure  Wood  behind  it,  and,  with  only  broken  ele- 
ments of  the  enemy  now  in  its  path,  the  33rd  had  its 
whole  line  on  the  bank  at  noon.  The  right  hinge 
of  the  Army  secure,  the  maneuver  had  been  so  beau- 
tifully made  and  it  was  such  a  complete  success  that 
it  attracted  less  attention  than  if  the  division  had 
been  obliged  to  endure  the  very  hard  fighting  which 
skill  and  foresight  had  prevented. 

As  the  booty  of  its  swift  combing  advance,  the 
33rd  had  taken  1,450  German  prisoners,  who  won- 
dered just  what  had  happened  to  them  and  why, 
and  seven  6-inch  howitzers,  two  110-millimeter 
guns,  twenty  pieces  of  field  artillery,  not  to  mention 
some  trench  mortars,  fifty-seven  machine-guns,  a 
light  railway,  and  a  well-stocked  engineer  depot. 
The  33rd's  own  loss  was  2  officers  and  34  men 
killed,  and  2  officers  and  205  men  wounded,  and  not 
a  single  man  missing.  To  put  it  in  another  way,  this 
division  with  its  fondness  for  figures  as  the  real  test 
of  military  prowess,  had  captured  nearly  six  Ger- 
mans for  every  casualty  of  its  own.  This  was  cer- 
tainly waging  thrifty  and  profitable  war. 

In  the  matter  of  traffic,  too,  the  33rd  with  char- 
acteristic self-reliance  proceeded  to  look  after  itself. 
General  Bell,  who  had  a  pungent  common  sense, 
knew  his  men  when  he  set  them  to  paddling  their 
own  canoe.  When  congestion  on  the  Bethincourt 
road,  assigned  to  both  the  33rd  and  the  80th  Divi- 


152  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

sions,  prompted  the  thought  of  making  a  road  of  his 
own,  he  did  not  take  up  the  question  with  Corps, 
which,  as  this  was  not  in  the  original  plan,  might  ask 
the  views  of  Army  on  the  suggestion.  A  young  engi- 
neer might  be  sent  out  to  make  an  investigation.  He 
might  consider  the  danger  of  drawing  fire,  and  other 
factors.  Then  he  might  return  to  Corps  for  further 
consultation.  After  this  another  young  engineer 
might  be  sent  out  to  superintend  the  construction. 
Before  Corps  knew  anything  about  it,  and  in  the 
time  that  procrastinating  counsel  might  have  occu- 
pied, the  Illinois  men,  who  did  not  need  anyone  to 
show  them  how  to  build  a  road  while  they  had 
spades  and  elbow-grease,  had  one  completed  right 
over  the  Mort  Homme. 

With  its  transport  moving  in  good  order  and  with 
its  objectives  taken,  the  33rd  might  say,  in  the  lan- 
guage which  it  had  learned  in  training  at  the  British 
front,  "  We've  finished  our  job,  and  we're  feeling 
quite  comfortable,  thank  you."  Except  to  put  in  a 
brigade  to  relieve  the  80th  and  join  up  with  the  4th 
Division — which  was  no  small  exception  to  the 
brigade — the  33rd  had  nothing  further  to  do  until, 
on  the  strength  of  the  way  it  had  carried  out  its 
mission  of  the  26th,  it  was  ordered  to  cross  the 
Meuse  on  October  8th  in  order  to  stop  some  of  the 
flanking  fire  from  the  other  bank — which  belongs  to 
another  chapter. 


BY  THE  RIGHT  FLANK  153 

Cronkhite's  80th,  or  "  Blue  Ridge "  National 
Army  Division,  which  was  the  center  division  of  the 
Third  Corps,  was  also  to  swing  toward  the  Meuse, 
and  had  farther  to  go,  though  the  Meuse  bends 
inward  toward  its  line  of  advance.  According  to  the 
Army  plan,  the  80th  was  to  have  only  one  day's  in- 
tensive fighting  and  swift  advancing.  On  the  night 
of  the  26th  the  narrowing  front  of  attack  was  to 
"  squeeze  "  it  out.  Immediately  ahead  of  them  the 
Blue  Ridge  men  had  two  miles  of  open  hilly  coun- 
try, which  facilitated  maintaining  their  formations. 
Beyond  this  was  a  series  of  woods  forming  prac- 
tically a  belt,  which  offered  cover  at  every  point  for 
machine-gun  nests.  Better  still  for  the  enemy's  pur- 
pose in  holding  up  a  persistent  attack — of  the  kind 
the  Blue  Ridge  men  were  under  orders  to  make  and 
would  make — beyond  this,  separated  by  another 
open  space,  was  another  belt  of  woods.  When  hard 
pressed  in  the  first  belt,  the  enemy  could  withdraw 
to  the  second,  where  his  machine-guns  would  have 
another  free  field  of  fire. 

The  Blue  Ridge  men  were  not  abashed  by 
hills  and  woods.  They  had  been  brought  up  among 
hills  and  woods.  After  breaking  through  the 
trench  system  in  a  clean  sweep,  by  noon  they  were 
in  the  first  belt  of  woods,  though  they  had  flanking 
fire  from  the  Jure  Wood  on  their  right.  They  were 
up  to  schedule  no  less  than  the  33rd;  but  they  had 


154  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

had  only  an  introduction  to  what  was  in  store  for 
them.  With  the  left  of  the  intrenched  33rd  as  their 
pivot,  they  must  take  the  second  belt  of  woods  be- 
tween them  and  the  river.  On  the  river  bank  was 
the  town  of  Brieulles,  where  they  were  supposed  to 
rest  their  left  when  the  task  was  finished.  Brieulles 
did  not  appear  to  be  far  away  on  the  map;  but  we 
were  to  be  a  long  time  in  taking  it. 

Fortunately  the  engineers — who  deserve  much 
credit  for  this — had  a  bridge  over  the  Forges  brook 
by  nine  in  the  morning  for  the  artillery.  This  was 
good  news  to  men  looking  across  the  open  into  the 
recesses  of  that  second  belt  of  woods,  which  ap- 
peared as  peaceful  from  that  distance  as  a  patch  in 
the  Shenandoah  valley.  In  a  race  against  time — 
with  the  schedule  burned  into  every  officer's  brain — 
the  80th  could  not  wait  for  all  the  guns  to  come  up. 
In  the  attack  at  three  in  the  afternoon  the  front  line 
of  the  division  moved  forward  with  drill-ground 
precision  and  the  confidence  of  its  morning's  suc- 
cess. 

Since  the  8oth's  movement  had  stopped  at  noon, 
the  enemy  had  had  three  hours  in  which  to  prepare 
his  reception  of  the  charge.  In  a  sense  the  success 
of  the  33rd  was  a  handicap  to  the  80th  that  after- 
noon. It  aroused  the  enemy  to  the  gravity  of  his 
situation  along  the  Meuse.  His  remnants  of  units 
retreating  before  the  33rd  were  swinging  round  in 


BY  THE  RIGHT  FLANK  155; 

front  of  the  80th;  reserves  had  been  hurried  across 
the  river  and  from  Brieulles.  By  this  time  our  plan 
was  revealed  to  him  along  our  whole  front.  The 
loss  of  more  river  bank  had  an  important  tactical 
relation  to  his  defense  of  Montfaucon  and  the  cover- 
ing positions  of  the  whale-back,  toward  which  our 
Fifth  Corps  in  the  center  was  advancing  rapidly.  If 
he  could  hold  his  ground  from  the  river  bank  to 
Cuisy,  he  might  have  our  center  in  a  salient.  His 
determination  to  hold  it  blazed  out  from  that  soft 
carpet  of  green  in  cruel  machine-gun  fire,  raking  the 
open  spaces.  His  artillery  on  the  opposite  bank  of 
the  Meuse,  as  well  as  on  the  near  bank  behind  the 
second  belt  of  woods  and  around  Brieulles,  opened 
fire  immediately  our  charge  developed  under  its 
observation.  Undaunted,  the  Blue  Ridge  men 
pressed  on  across  the  open  toward  the  machine-gun 
nests  in  the  edge  of  the  second  belt,  as  toward  a 
refuge  in  a  storm.  They  took  these,  only  to  find 
that  more  machine-guns  were  echelonned  in  the  re- 
cesses of  the  woods.  Gas  as  well  as  high-explosive 
shells  were  falling  in  the  first  belt  and  at  points 
where  our  reserves  were  concentrated.  In  openings 
or  narrow  stretches  of  the  second  belt  where  units 
were  able  to  drive  through,  they  looked  out  on  more 
open  spaces  under  command  of  machine-guns  from 
ridges  and  thickets,  while  right  and  left  any  unit 
whose  courage  or  opportunity  had  carried  it  too  far 


156  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

was  caught  in  enfilade  by  the  fire  of  machine-guns 
which  had  not  been  mopped  up. 

That  night  the  8oth  had  its  right  up  with  the 
33rd's  intrenched  left  on  the  river.  Its  brave  accom- 
plishment on  the  remainder  of  its  front  was  best 
measured  by  the  powerful  resistance  it  had  met. 
The  division,  which  was  to  have  been  squeezed  out 
by  the  narrowing  front,  had  to  remain  in  line  be- 
cause the  front  had  not  been  narrowed,  after  far 
harder  fighting  than  it  had  anticipated.  Transport 
congestion  on  the  road  which  the  33rd  as  well  as 
the  80th  was  still  using  was  extreme.  If  the  Blue 
Ridge  men  could  not  bring  their  supplies  up  by 
wheel  they  might  by  hand.  Carrying  parties  brought 
up  food  and  small  arms  ammunition  by  fording  the 
brook  past  the  stalled  trucks. 

There  could  be  no  question  about  the  character 
of  the  next  day's  fighting.  The  enemy  was  serving 
notice  of  it  throughout  the  night.  The  8oth's  line 
needed  re-forming.  Its  commander  did  not  mean  to 
send  his  sturdy,  willing,  lithe  men  to  slaughter  in 
the  fulness  of  their  youthful  energy  and  ambition. 
They  must  have  artillery  protection.  Their  divi- 
sional artillery,  operating  with  tthe  division  for  the 
first  time,  required  daylight  for  going  into  position 
and  mastering  its  problems  of  fire  in  a  task  which 
was  both  beyond  its  strength  and  complicated,  as 
was  all  the  other  detail  of  preparing  for  the  attack, 


BY  THE  RIGHT  FLANK  157 

by  the  terrific  enemy  artillery  fire  spread  from  the 
roads  in  the  rear  to  the  front  line. 

The  shells  from  the  German  field-pieces  were 
"  small  potatoes  "  compared  to  the  "  big  fellows  " 
that  were  arriving  in  increasing  numbers.  As  the 
men  listened  to  the  scream  of  the  large  calibers  and 
studied  their  bursts,  they  learned  that  these  were 
coming  not  only  from  the  front  but  from  both  sides. 
Enfilade  machine-gun  fire  is  bad  enough,  but  enfilade 
artillery  fire  is  still  harder  to  bear.  You  may  at 
least  charge  the  machine-guns,  but  you  cannot  charge 
the  distant  unseen  powers  hurling  high-explosive 
shells  into  your  flank. 

The  Borne  de  Cornouiller,  or  Hill  378,  which  I 
took  pains  to  describe  in  a  previous  chapter,  was 
now  having  its  first  of  many  innings  at  the  expense 
of  the  Third  Corps  at  its  feet  in  the  trough  of  the 
Meuse.  This  bald  height  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river  looked  across  the  river  bottoms  and  the  rising 
valley  walls  to  the  heights  of  the  whale-back.  If 
the  observers  on  the  Borne  de  Cornouiller  saw  a 
target  which  their  guns  could  not  reach,  they  sig- 
naled its  location  to  the  whale-back,  which  might 
have  it  in  range;  and  the  observers  of  the  whale- 
back  were  responsively  courteous.  This  accounted 
for  the  cross  artillery  fire  which  for  weeks  was  to 
knife  our  men  of  the  Third  Corps  with  the  wicked- 
ness of  assassin's  thrusts  in  the  ribs. 


158  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

From  Hill  378  the  80th  Division's  movement  of 
troops,  guns,  and  transport  in  the  open  was  almost 
as  visible  through  powerful  glasses  as  people  in  the 
streets  below  from  a  church  steeple.  As  the  33rd 
was  already  dug  in  and  could  advance  no  farther 
except  by  crossing  the  river,  the  80th  was  convinced 
that  it  was  receiving  as  a  surplus  the  allotment  from 
over  the  Meuse  which  otherwise  might  have  been 
sent  against  the  Illinois  men.  A  measure  of  the 
increase  of  artillery  fire  is  given  in  the  Third  Corps 
report,  which  estimates  that  the  enemy  sent  65,000 
shells  into  its  area  on  the  27th,  compared  to  5,000 
on  the  26th.  Against  this  long-range  fire  the 
8oth's  divisional  artillery  was  as  helpless  as  against 
falling  meteors.  The  Blue  Ridge  men  must  endure 
the  deluge  with  philosophic  fatalism.  Their  own  gun- 
ners could  only  give  them  barrages,  and  concentrate 
on  machine-gun  nests  and  such  field  battery  positions 
as  were  located. 

The  deadly  accuracy  of  the  enemy's  artillery  fire, 
its  wide  distribution,  blasting  holes  in  the  roads, 
loosing  on  infantry  as  it  deployed,  on  convoys  of 
artillery  ammunition,  and  raking  our  front-line  posi- 
tions, only  made  it  more  important  that  the  next 
attack  should  be  well  delivered  and  in  force.  So  it 
was.  At  one  in  the  afternoon,  under  the  barrage  of 
their  artillery,  trench  mortars,  and  machine-guns 
which  they  had  forced  through  to  the  front,  the  Blue 


BY  THE  RIGHT  FLANK  159 

Ridge  men,  with  a  dash  worthy  of  the  traditions  of 
their  fathers  in  the  Civil  War,  gained  their  objec- 
tives, except  on  the  left,  where  the  4th  Division  was 
having  troubles  of  its  own  of  a  kind  which  the  80th 
could  fully  appreciate. 

Though  in  the  second  belt  of  woods,  the  80th  was 
not  yet  to  be  squeezed  out.  There  was  Brieulles  to 
be  taken  yet,  and  the  German  reinforcements  which 
were  rapidly  arriving  required  more  attention  than 
the  other  divisions  of  the  Corps  could  spare  from 
their  own  fronts.  The  German  command  decided 
that  it  was  time  that  these  Americans  had  a  taste  of 
offensive  tactics  themselves.  Fresh  German  troops, 
advancing  from  Brieulles  on  the  third  morning,  de- 
livered a  sharp  counter-attack;  but  the  Blue  Ridge 
men  had  no  patience  with  any  attempt  to  drive  them 
back  from  the  ground  they  had  won.  They  were 
of  the  "sticking"  kind,  as  their  forefathers  had 
been.  It  was  a  joyous  business,  repulsing  that 
counter-attack  to  the  accompaniment  of  such  yells  as 
Union  soldiers  associated  with  Confederate  ferocity. 
It  was  enlightening,  too,  in  that  it  showed  both  them 
and  their  adversaries  what  a  difference  there  is  be- 
tween charging  machine-guns  and  using  them  to  stop 
a  charge. 

This  incident  of  the  German  counter-attack — and 
the  Blue  Ridge  men  made  it  an  incident — was  a  fillip 
for  the  defenders  as  they  sprang  up  for  their  own 


160  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

attack,  which  began  at  7.15,  soon  after  the  Germans 
were  in  flight.  The  object  was  to  advance  the  left 
flank,  which  had  been  held  up  the  preceding  day,  into 
Brieulles.  The  8oth's  artillery  concentrated  on 
hills  227  and  281,  which  commanded  the  town,  and 
the  town  itself,  which  is  at  a  sharp  bend  of  the  river. 
It  happened  that  the  Germans  were  even  more  inter- 
ested in  holding  Brieulles  than  on  the  preceding  day. 
The  low  ground  around  it  held  a  semi-circle  of 
machine-gun  positions.  While  the  long-range  artil- 
lery fire  from  flanking  heights  was  heavier  than 
before  on  the  8oth's  area,  German  field-guns  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river  from  Brieulles  had  the  special 
mission  of  protecting  the  town. 

From  the  start  the  fighting  was  furious  and  at 
close  quarters.  The  80th  made  some  headway  in 
the  morning,  re-formed,  and  renewed  its  effort  in 
the  afternoon.  Again  and  again  parties  attempted 
to  rush  the  crest  of  281,  which  not  only  commanded 
the  town  but  was  linked  up  with  the  town  and  the 
river  bend  in  the  tactical  defense  of  the  whale-back, 
which,  after  the  taking  of  Montfaucon,  the  Fifth 
Corps  was  approaching  in  front.  The  ground  be- 
fore Brieulles  was  impassable.  The  valor  of  tired 
man  had  done  all  it  could  under  sniping  of  machine- 
guns  and  all  calibers  of  artillery.  Before  we  could 
take  Brieulles,  we  must  have  more  guns  and  develop 
a  better  method  of  approach.    In  holding  it  the  Ger- 


BY  THE  RIGHT  FLANK  i6r 

mans  might  find  some  compensation  for  the  loss  of 
an  engineer  dump,  estimated  to  be  worth  millions, 
which  the  8oth  had  taken. 

Sent  in  for  one  day's  fighting,  the  division  had 
fought  for  three  days.  Now  it  was  withdrawn  ac- 
cording to  the  original  plan;  but  this  did  not  mean 
that  it  was  to  go  into  rest.  It  was  dog-weary,  though 
not  exhausted.  When  a  brigade  from  the  33rd, 
which  had  been  busy  fortifying  the  river  bank  and 
sending  patrols  across  the  river,  and  generally  keep- 
ing its  irrepressible  hand  in,  took  over  the  8oth's 
front,  the  8oth's  artillery  was  kept  in  the  sector,  one 
infantry  regiment  remained  with  the  4th  in  action, 
and  the  other  three  regiments  were  marched  away 
as  reserves  for  the  37th  Division,  which,  after 
throwing  in  all  its  strength  in  conquering  the  deep 
Montfaucon  Wood,  was  expecting  a  counter-attack 
by  the  enemy  to  recover  a  position  which  was 
vital  in  that  area  to  his  defense  of  the  whale- 
back.  As  we  had  kept  him  too  busy  with  our  at- 
tacks for  the  counter-attack  to  materialize,  the 
three  regiments  of  the  80th  had  only  the  experience 
of  that  marching  and  counter-marching  by  which 
alarms  and  changing  dispositions  wear  out  shoe- 
leather  and  patience  in  the  course  of  a  mighty  battle. 
The  Blue  Ridge  men  had  advanced  six  miles,  taking 
850  prisoners  and  16  guns,  with  a  loss  of  1,064  men 
in  killed  and  wounded,  as  the  introductory  part  of 


1 62  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  service  which  they  were  to  perform  in  the 
Meuse-Argonne. 

As  the  one  regular  division  in  line,  the  tried  4th, 
on  the  left  of  the  Third  Corps,  would  hardly  be 
given  the  short  end  of  the  stick.  There  was  no 
road  in  its  sector.  Once  its  transport  was  across 
the  trench  system,  it  had  to  switch  back  from 
the  sector  of  the  neighboring  79th  Division  to 
its  own.  This  was  a  handicap  characteristic  of 
the  stern  problem  of  the  4th,  which,  if  it  failed, 
would  set  a  bad  example  for  inexperienced 
divisions. 

Being  forewarned  of  what  was  expected  of  his 
regulars,  General  Hines  was  forearmed  in  his  pre- 
vision. Recognizing  the  miserable  character  of  the 
Esnes-Malancourt  road  which  the  division  was  to 
use,  the  engineers  of  the  4th  began  work  on  its  im- 
provement early  in  the  evening  of  the  25th  before 
the  battle  began.  In  common  with  the  two  other 
divisions  of  the  Corps,  the  4th  had  to  cross  the 
Forges  brook.  Its  left  flank,  in  liaison  with  the  79th, 
faced  the  height  of  Cuisy,  which  was  a  flanking 
approach  to  the  Montfaucon  heights,  and  its  right 
the  practically  continuous  system  of  woods  which 
joined  up  with  those  in  front  of  the  80th.  Thus  it 
was  a  link  between  the  swinging  movement  to  the 
Meuse  and  the  main  drive,  the  mission  of  its  left 
being  to  help  force  the  evacuation  of  Montfaucon, 


BY  THE  RIGHT  FLANK  163 

and  of  its  right  to  occupy  the  bank  of  the  Meuse 
from  Brieulles  north  to  Sassey. 

The  whole  command  was  keyed  up  to  great  things 
when  with  a  yell  the  men  went  over  the  top  in  the 
thick  mist  on  the  morning  of  the  26th.  If  not  regu- 
lar in  the  old  sense,  they  took  pride  in  being  pro- 
fessional in  skill,  though  most  of  the  young  officers, 
as  in  other  regular  divisions,  were  from  the  train- 
ing camps.  They  did  not  belong  to  any  part  of  the 
country.  They  were  not  National  Guard  or  Na- 
tional Army,  but  just  fighting  soldiers  who  belonged 
to  all  America.  Discipline  was  strict  in  this  divi- 
sion. Its  spirit  of  corps  was  in  the  conviction  of 
its  rigid  efficiency.  With  hardly  a  waver  in  its 
methodical  progress  it  had  reached  the  Corps  objec- 
tive by  12.30.  There  it  dug  in,  waiting  until  5.30 
for  the  division  on  its  left,  which  was  the  keystone 
of  the  movement,  to  come  up.  Then  the  men  rose 
again  and  went  forward  without  any  artillery  sup- 
port, only  to  meet  what  the  divisions  right  and  lejft 
were  meeting  in  the  rapidly  stiffening  German 
machine-gun  defense,  and  to  call  for  shields  against 
murderous  odds. 

In  their  road-making  across  the  brook  and  the 
trench  systems  the  engineers  had  used  40,000  sand- 
bags. Early  in  the  afternoon  they  had  a  passage- 
way which  permitted  of  the  slow  passage  of  trans- 
port between  intervals  of  filling  in  the  ruts  cut  by 


164 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


the  heavy  trucks;  b''t  two  divisions,  in  the  section 
of  the  line  where  the  farthest  advance  was  expected, 
were  limited  to  road  facilities  inadequate  for  one. 
It  can  only  be  said  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 
diligence  of  the  engineers  the  situation  would  have 
been  even  worse. 

The  failure  of  the  center  to  reach  Montfaucon 
on  the  26th  had  an  intimate  concern  with  the  plans 
of  the  4th  the  next  day,  when  the  positive  orders 
for  its  capture  required  that  the  4th  should  attack 
without  its  artillery,  which  was  still  laboring  to  get 
forward.  From  7.30  until  darkness,  without  their 
shields  against  the  increasing  artillery  and  machine- 
gun  fire,  the  men  continued  their  workmanlike  ad- 
vance. Didn't  they  belong  to  the  4th,  which  was 
as  good  as  the  1st,  2nd,  or  3rd,  Regulars?  When 
night  came  they  had  behind  them  the  heights  around 
Montfaucon.  They  had  gone  through  Brieulles 
Wood.  They  were  also  in  the  south  edge  of  the 
Fays  Wood,  but  when  they  tried  to  dig  in  there  the 
machine-gun  and  shell-fire  was  too  deadly  to  be  en- 
dured. They  had  to  fall  back  to  the  slope  of 
295. 

Still  their  artillery  was  not  up;  still  the  order  was 
to  attack;  and  they  attacked  the  next  morning.  The 
Germans  attacked  also;  and  were  held.  We  were 
now  against  the  strong  covering  positions  on  the 
slopes  of  the  summit  of  the  whale-back,  where  the 


BY  THE  RIGHT  FLANK  165 

Germans  were  organizing  their  Kriemhilde  main 
line  of  defense.  During  the  remaining  days  of  Sep- 
tember, the  4th  cleaned  up  the  Brieulles  Wood, 
made  itself  secure  in  its  defenses,  and  kept  harassing 
the  enemy  with  patrols.  On  the  night  of  the  28th 
its  artillery  had  arrived,  though  traffic  congestion 
limited  its  ammunition  supply,  which  it  needed  in 
great  quantities  to  counter  the  enemy's  artillery  fire 
as  well  as  his  machine-gun  nests.  It  was  in  range 
of  many  of  the  guns  from  the  east  bank  of  the 
Meuse  which  were  so  mercilessly  harassing  the 
80th,  and  of  course  was  receiving  an  immense  vol- 
ume of  shells  from  all  the  heights  of  the  whale- 
back.  The  division  was  short  of  supplies  and  it 
was  tired,  but  there  could  be  no  thought  of  taking 
it  out.  It  was  to  remain  in  line  in  a  tug-of-war  with 
the  enemy  until  it  took  part  in  the  general  attack 
of  October  4th,  being  all  the  while  under  that  raking 
cross  artillery  fire  that  made  the  Corps  sector  a  hell 
night  and  day. 

Contemptuous  in  their  security,  the  observers 
from  Hill  378,  the  Borne  de  Cornouiller,  continued 
to  exchange  notes  with  the  observers  on  the  heights 
of  the  whale-back,  as  they  looked  down  on  the 
amphitheater,  peering  for  targets  into  the  wrinkles 
of  the  uneven  landscape  and  soaking  the  woods 
which  we  occupied  with  gas.  Our  only  hope  of  pro- 
tection was   to   find   ravines   deep   enough   or   with 


166  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

walls  steep  enough  to  enable  us  to  dig  pits  which 
could  not  be  reached  by  the*  plunging  fire  from  three 
directions.  These  German  gunners  knew  the  roads 
which  we  must  take  at  night  in  order  to  move  our 
supplies  to  the  front;  the  villages  where  our  trans- 
port might  halt;  and  the  location  or  probable  loca- 
tion of  our  batteries,  while  theirs  were  hidden.  If 
we  wheeled  to  attack  to  the  right  or  left,  we  received 
shells  in  the  back  as  well  as  in  front.  The  first 
day  of  the  battle,  when  the  Corps  had  fired  80,000 
shells  against  the  Germans'  5,000,  became  the  mock- 
ery of  a  halcyon  past  in  face  of  the  concentrations 
which  now  pounded  the  Corps  from  sources  to  which 
we  could  not  respond  with  anything  like  equivalent 
power. 

If  the  men  of  the  Corps  who  had  to  endure  this 
plunging  fire  had  heard  the  name  of  the  Borne  de 
Cornouiller,  they  would  probably  have  called  it 
u  Corned  Willy,"  the  sobriquet  which  naturally 
came  to  the  lips  of  our  soldiers,  who  eventually 
conquered  it  on  rations  of  cold  corned  beef.  But 
they  knew  only  that  shells  were  coming  from  three 
quarters  of  the  compass,  while  they  asked  "  why  in 

"   our   artillery   did  not   silence   the    German 

artillery.  The  answer  was  that  our  artillery  could 
not,  until  the  Borne  de  Cornouiller  and  the  whale- 
back  were  taken,  which  was  not  to  be  for  another 
month.     The  Third  Corps  was  to  keep  on  trying 


BY  THE  RIGHT  FLANK  167 

for  that  town  of  Brieulles,  while  it  kept  on  fighting 
in  that  wicked  river  trough,  to  support  the  attacks 
in  the  center.  There  was  no  use  of  growling.  The 
thing  had  to  be  borne. 


XI 


BY  THE  LEFT 

German  comfort  in  the  Forest  retreats — The  77th  see-sawing 
through — The  28th  plowing  down  the  trough  of  the  Aire — 
Scaling  the  escarpments  of  the  Chene  Tondu  and  Taille  l'Abbe 
— An  enemy  counter-attack — The  35th  pushing  four  miles  down 
the  east  wall  of  the  Aire — Pushing  through  an  alley  to  the 
untenable  position  of  Exermont — Unjust  reflections  on  the  per- 
sistence of  the  35th. 


On  the  left  flank  the  First  Corps,  composed  of  the 
77th,  28th,  and  35th  Divisions,  was  having  quite  as 
hard  fighting  as  the  Third  Corps  on  the  right  flank. 
The  regiment  of  the  92nd  Division  (colored),  Na- 
tional Army,  forming  the  link  with  the  French  on 
the  western  edge  of  the  Argonne  Forest,  buffeted  in 
its  inexperience  by  the  intricacies  of  attack  through 
the  maze  of  trenches,  was  withdrawn  after  its  initial 
service.  It  was  better  that  the  77th  should  take  its 
place  in  meeting  the  baffling  requirements  of 
liaison  between  two  Allied  armies. 

In  the  trench  system  before  the  Forest,  the  "  Lib- 
erty "  men  of  the  77th  met  comparatively  slight 
resistance,  their  chief  trouble  being  to  maintain  the 
uniformity  of  their  advance  through  the  fortifica- 
tions  and  across  the  shell-craters,   over  the   tricky 

168 


BY  THE  LEFT  169 

ground  of  sharp  ridges  and  gullies  littered  with 
torn  tree-trunks  and  limbs.  The  division  staff  had 
in  vain  sought  opportunities  for  flanking  maneuvers. 
A  straight  frontal  attack  must  be  made.  "  There's 
the  Forest.  Go  through  it!  "  paraphrases  the  sim- 
ple orders  of  the  division  commander.  This  put  the 
responsibility  squarely  on  the  shoulders  of  the  young 
platoon  and  company  commanders.  They  knew  that 
they  could  depend  upon  one  thing.  There  was 
nothing  but  forest  ahead  of  them.  They  need  not 
concern  themselves  with  any  open  fields,  though 
they  would  have  their  share  of  swamps  and  ravines, 
which  would  not  lessen  the  difficulty  of  keeping  their 
units  in  line  through  the  thickets. 

If  the  French  "  scalloping  "  on  the  left  of  the 
Forest,  and  the  28th  Division  "scalloping"  on  the 
right  of  the  Forest,  did  not  drive  in  their  protecting 
wedges,  a  cross-fire  would  hold  the  77th's  flanks 
back  while  its  center,  driving  ahead,  would  be  caught 
between  the  infantry  and  machine-gun  fire  from  the 
Germans  on  either  flank.  If  the  French  and  the 
28th  fully  succeeded  in  their  mission,  then,  as  we 
already  know,  all  the  77th  would  have  to  do  would 
be  to  "  mop  up  "  any  Germans  who  failed  to  with- 
draw in  time  from  the  pressure  on  either  side.  Ac- 
cording to  this  plan  the  77th  was  to  have  an  easy 
time.  The  plan  failing  to  work  out,  the  77th  had 
anything  but  an  easy  time. 


170  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

The  Forest  was  held,  as  it  frequently  had  been, 
I  understand,  by  Landwehr  troops.  Some  of  the 
old  fellows,  who  were  not  sturdy  enough  for  real 
warfare,  had  spent  months  and  even  years  there. 
They  considered  that  they  had  the  squatter  right  of 
occupation  to  the  Argonne.  There  were  theaters, 
rest  camps,  and  well-appointed  hospitals,  with 
enough  verboten  signs  along  the  paths  to  alleviate 
homesickness  in  a  foreign  land.  Isolated  in  their 
peaceful  solitude,  where  they  could  be  cool  in  sum- 
mer and  comfortable  in  winter,  they  took  the  interest 
in  adding  to  the  comforts  of  their  sylvan  surround- 
ings of  a  city  man  in  his  new  place  in  the  country. 
Positive  artistry  was  achieved  in  the  camp  of  the 
German  commanding  general.  The  walls  of  his 
office  and  sitting-room  were  wainscoted,  with  a  snug 
ante-room  where  orderlies  might  attend  and  mes- 
sengers might  wait.  The  heating  arrangements  lit- 
erally afforded  hot  water  at  all  hours.  A  spacious 
dining-room  was  supplied  from  a  commodious 
kitchen.  If  the  French  began  putting  over  heavy 
shells,  interrupting  the  German  officers  at  their  chess 
game  or  in  reading  the  Cologne  Gazette,  it  was  only 
a  few  steps  to  a  stairway  that  led  to  an  electric- 
lighted  chamber  so  deep  in  the  earth  that  it  was 
perfectly  safe  from  a  direct  hit  by  the  largest 
calibers. 

All    the    headquarters    and    camps    were    under 


BY  THE  LEFT  171 

canopies  of  foliage  which  screened  them  from  aerial 
detection.  Battalions  come  here  from  the  death  and 
filth  and  misery  of  violent  sectors  settled  down  to  a 
holiday  existence  in  an  environment  associated  with 
a  vacation  woods.  Of  course  there  was  a  war  in 
progress,  but  they  knew  it  only  through  sending  out 
detachments  to  keep  watch  and  maintain  the  trenches 
in  repair.  The  Landwehr  men  saw  enough  shell- 
bursts  to  say  that  they  had  been  under  fire.  Indeed, 
one  was  occasionally  wounded.  There  was  no  need 
of  trench  raids  for  information  in  a  mutually  ac- 
cepted stalemate.  To  fire  more  than  enough 
shells  to  keep  up  the  postures  of  war  might 
bring  retaliation  which  would  interfere  with 
smoking  your  pipe  and  drinking  your  beer  at 
leisure. 

After  this  pacific  routine  had  been  long  estab- 
lished and  so  much  effort  and  pains  had  been  spent  in 
improvements,  appeared  these  outsiders  of  the  Lib- 
erty Division  in  the  rude  haste  that  they  might  show 
in  a  subway  station  at  home.  They  had  no  respect 
for  the  traditional  privacy  of  a  gentleman's  country 
estate.  However,  the  irritated  occupants  were  no 
passive  resistants.  They  had  thought  out  in  precise 
terms  how  they  would  defend  their  fastness  against 
any  such  outrageous  lawlessness.  They  knew  every 
road  and  path,  and  how  to  make  use  of  their  ideal 
woodland  cover.     They  might  not  be  strong  in  the 


172  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

front  line,  but  as  the  military  men  say  they  were 
*'  echelonned  deep." 

There  was  no  line  of  resistance  in  the  first  stages 
of  the  advance,  but  many  successive  points  of  resist- 
ance, ready  to  receive  the  invader  in  turn,  punishing 
him  severely  in  his  slow  progress  if  he  were  not 
repulsed.  But  even  they  in  their  chosen  positions, 
covering  avenues  where  the  foliage  was  not  dense, 
could  not  see  far.  This  developed  close-quarters 
fighting  from  the  start. 

As  the  Germans  had  particularly  depended  upon 
light  railways  in  the  Argonne,  the  roads,  except 
transversal  ones,  had  been  neglected.  This  did  not 
matter,  so  far  as  it  concerned  bringing  up  the  artil- 
lery. There  was  no  maneuvering  artillery  in  the 
thick  woods.  Even  if  there  had  been,  it  could  not 
get  any  angle  of  fire  for  shells  which  would  burst 
short  of  their  targets  against  tree-trunks.  It  was 
exclusively  an  infantry  fight  except  for  the  machine- 
guns  and  the  baby  soixante-quinze  or  37-millimeter 
guns,  in  which  the  heads  of  the  Americans  bobbed 
through  the  thickets  in  search  of  the  hidden  heads 
of  the  defenders.  A  platoon  commander  might  not 
keep  watch  of  his  own  men  in  the  maze — let  alone 
see  what  the  platoons  on  his  flank  were  doing. 

On  the  first  day  the  77th  had  practically  reached 
its  objectives,  on  the  second  it  was  to  suffer  the  same 
loss  of  momentum  as  other  divisions.     The  "  seal- 


BY  THE  LEFT  173 

loping "  on  the  edges  of  the  Forest,  however 
valorous,  could  not  keep  up  to  schedule.  If  the 
Forest  boundaries  had  been  straight  lines  on  a  plain, 
the  result  might  have  been  different.  Liaison  over 
the  escarpments  in  the  valley  of  the  Aire  and  the 
hills  and  ravines  on  the  left  became  a  nightmare. 
Still  the  orders  were  "Push  ahead!"  to  battalions 
or  companies  which  were  not  up.  If  under  this  spur 
they  advanced  beyond  their  flanks,  then  the  flanks 
were  to  "  push  ahead!  "  Thus  in  a  process  of  see- 
sawing platoons  and  companies  continued  to  make 
progress.  The  units  in  the  middle  of  the  Forest 
saw  nothing  but  trees  and  underbrush.  All  the 
world  was  forest  to  them.  Those  who  found  them- 
selves on  the  edge  looked  out  on  stretches  of  the 
great  battlefield  under  puffs  of  shell  smoke,  and  to 
the  going  and  coming  of  aeroplanes  in  another 
world,  and  possibly  were  forced  to  seek  shelter  in 
the  Forest  by  bursts  of  machine-gun  fire  to  which 
they  were  exposed  from  other  divisional  sectors. 

So  it  was  not  surprising  that  the  men  of  the  77th, 
immersed  in  the  Forest  depths,  should  think  that 
they  were  fighting  the  whole  battle.  They  knew 
nothing  of  the  "  scalloping  "  tactics.  Their  horizon 
was  confined  to  a  few  square  yards.  To  them  the 
Argonne  had  no  appeal  of  a  holiday  woods.  Sylvan 
glades,  which  the  poet  might  admire,  meant  stum- 
bling down  one  side  and  crawling  up  the  other,  with 


i74  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

ears  keen  for  the  whipping  sound  which  might 
signify  that  they  were  in  an  ambush.  They  might  not 
stop  in  for  a  nap  at  the  rest-camps.  They  were  not 
sleeping  in  those  beautiful  wainscoted  quarters,  but 
on  the  dank  ground  in  the  deep  shadow  of  the  trees 
which  kept  the  sunlight  from  slaking  moisture  after 
the  rains.  The  rolling  kitchens  were  held  up  in  the 
rear  where  the  trucks  cut  deep  in  the  saturated 
woodland  earth,  and  hurdled  over  tree-trunks  be- 
tween sloughs,  while  the  Forest  made  the  darkness 
all  the  more  trying  as  the  weary  engineers  en- 
deavored to  hold  up  their  end. 

The  infantry  continued  its  valiant  and  persistent 
see-sawing.  On  the  29th  they  made  a  big  swing  on 
the  right,  and  on  the  left  took  a  depot  de  machines, 
or  roundhouse,  and  the  treacherous  ravine  south  of 
Binarville  in  which  it  was  situated,  by  hard  and  auda- 
cious fighting.  On  the  30th  the  whole  line  again 
made  progress,  against  machine-gunners  who  had 
cunningly  prepared  paths  to  give  them  visibility  for 
a  greater  distance,  and  to  draw  the  attackers  into 
the  line  of  their  fire.  They  charged  down  the 
slopes  of  the  Charlevaux  ravine  and  its  irregular 
branches,  across  the  streams  and  swamps  at  their 
bottoms,  and  up  the  slopes  on  the  other  side — all 
this  through  woods  and  thickets,  of  course.  The 
next  day  an  even  deeper  advance  was  made  over 
very  irregular  ground,  while  the  right  in  triumphant 


V 


BY  THE  LEFT  175 

ardor  pressed  forward,  ahead  of  the  left  and  center, 
across  the  Fontaine-aux-Charmes  ravine  and  its 
branches  and  their  streams  until  it  was  past  the 
heights  of  the  Chene  Tondu.  As  the  Chene  Tondu 
was  not  yet  wholly  in  the  possession  of  the  division 
on  the  right,  the  gallant  victors  deserved  something 
better  in  their  weariness  than  to  be  forced  to  retire 
by  overwhelming  fire  in  flank  and  rear  from  the 
commanding  heights.  The  night  of  October  1st 
the  "  Liberty "  men,  after  six  days  in  which  they 
had  steadily  advanced  for  a  depth  of  six  miles,  held 
the  line  from  the  Chene  Tondu  across  the  Forest  to 
a  point  north  of  Binarville,  its  supporting  flanks  on 
either  edge  of  the  Forest  in  a  deadlock. 

There  was  forest  and  still  more  forest  ahead  of 
the  77th.  After  it  had  conquered  the  Argonne,  it 
might  have  a  chance  to  take  the  Bourgogne  Wood 
beyond  on  the  way  to  the  Lille-Metz  railway.  After 
this  experience  the  New  Yorkers  ought  not  to  be 
afraid  to  go  into  Central  Park  after  dark  when 
they  returned  home. 

They  may  have  thought  that  the  28th  on  their 
right  was  not  keeping  up  to  program,  and  the 
28th  may  have  thought  that  they  were  not;  but 
neither  had  the  advantage  that  I  had  of  seeing  the 
other  in  action  during  those  terrible  days.  Astride 
the  Aire  river,  having  the  trough  as  its  very  own, 
the  28th  put  a  heart  of  iron  into  its  first  impact,  and 


176  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

tempered  it  to  steel  in  its  succeeding  attacks.  The 
"scalloping"  process  which  was  its  mission  looked 
just  as  simple  on  a  flat  map  as  the  swing  toward 
the  Meuse  of  the  33rd;  but  then,  everything  looked 
simple  on  the  map,  and  everything  for  all  the  divi- 
sions might  have  been  as  simple  as  it  looked  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  enemy.  He  was  always  inter- 
fering with  our  staff  plans.  If  the  Aire's  course 
had  been  straight,  and  the  valley  walls  had  come 
down  symmetrically  to  the  river  bottom,  the  28th 
would  have  had  straight  open  fighting,  which  is  a 
satisfaction  to  brave  men  whatever  the  cost.  A 
direct  frontal  attack  was  as  out  of  the  question  for 
the  Pennsylvanians  as  it  was  mandatory  for  the 
77th.  They  must  exhibit  suppleness  and  cunning,  or 
bulldog  grit  was  of  no  service. 

In  full  realization  that  the  true  defense  of  the 
Forest  was  on  its  flanks,  the  enemy  developed  strong 
resistance  in  front  of  the  28th  on  the  first  day.  The 
Perrieres  Hill,  a  bastion  in  the  first  line  of  defense, 
honeycombed  with  machine-gun  emplacements,  held 
up  the  attack  on  the  left  as  it  swept  its  fire  over  the 
trench  system  on  either  side,  covering  the  steep 
approaches  for  its  capture  which  were  studded  with 
shell-craters  and  festooned  with  tangles  of  wire. 
The  enemy  also  set  store  by  the  ruins  of  the  town  of 
Varennes  in  the  valley,  which  were  to  become  so 
familiar  to  all  the  soldiers  who  ever  passed  along 


BY  THE  LEFT  177 

the  Aire  road.  At  Varennes  the  road  crosses  the 
river  in  sight  of  the  surrounding  congeries  of  hills. 
Under  cover  of  the  ruins  and  the  river  banks  the 
Germans  had  both  seventy-sevens  and  machine-guns, 
which,  well-placed  as  they  were,  failed  of  their  pur- 
pose. It  was  now  evident  that  the  enemy  would 
strive  to  hold  every  height  on  either  side  of  the 
Aire  with  the  object  of  grinding  our  attacks  between 
the  molars  of  two  powerful  jaws. 

For  the  German  map  plan  was  as  simple  as  ours. 
It  invited  our  initiative  into  the  open  throat  of  the 
valley  and  into  blind  alleys  between  the  heights 
blazing  with  fire.  The  28th  was  to  interfere  with 
the  German  plan  just  as  the  Germans  were  to  inter- 
fere with  the  American.  Plans  did  not  seem  to 
count.  Nothing  counted  except  tactical  resource  and 
courage  in  the  face  of  shells  which  came  screaming 
and  bullets  whistling  from  crests  in  sight  and  crests 
out  of  sight.  Woods  fighting  was  only  an  incident 
of  the  problem  for  the  28th,  which  took  La  Forge 
on  the  edge  of  Montblainville,  only  to  find  that  the 
machine-guns  in  the  Bouzon  Wood  on  the  west  wall 
had  an  open  field  for  their  fire  from  three  quarters 
of  the  compass. 

The  disadvantage  of  the  2  8th's  sector  from  the 
start  was  that  there  was  no  screen  of  foliage  to  cover 
a  deployment  before  a  charge.  On  the  night  of 
the  26th  the  battalion  which  had  beem  held  up  by 


178  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  Perrieres  Hill  was  marched  round,  to  carry  out 
the  plan  of  "  scalloping,"  for  an  attack,  on  the 
Chene  Tondu,  which  was  an  escarpment  projecting 
out  of  the  Forest  into  the  valley  of  the  Aire  north 
of  Montblainville,  like  a  wood-covered  promontory 
into  a  strait.  It  commanded  the  whole  river  valley 
and  the  Forest  edge  on  its  front.  Its  slopes  were 
irregular,  with  every  irregularity  seeming  to  favor 
the  defender,  who  at  every  point  looked  down-hill 
upon  the  attacker.  Behind  it  was  another  escarp- 
ment, even  stronger,  the  Taille  l'Abbe.  Between 
the  two  the  enemy  had  ample  wooded  space  for 
moving  his  reserves  and  artillery  free  from  observa- 
tion. Should  the  Chene  Tondu  be  lost,  the  enemy 
had  only  to  withdraw  with  punishing  rearguard  fire 
to  this  second  bastion.  On  the  reverse  slope  of  the 
Taille  l'Abbe  were  hospitals,  comfortable  officers' 
quarters,  and  dugouts,  while  the  artillery  in  position 
there  could  shoot  over  the  Chene  Tondu  with  plung- 
ing fire  upon  its  approaches.  Along  the  heights  of 
the  Forest  edge  and  other  heights  to  the  rear,  other 
guns,  as  many  as  the  Germans  could  spare  for  the 
sector,  might  find  perfect  camouflage  and  security. 

There  were  also  the  heights  of  the  east  bank  of 
the  Aire  to  consider.  With  the  river  winding  past 
their  feet  they  interlocked  across  the  valley.  Thus 
advancing  down  the  valley  meant  advancing  against 
heights  in  front  as  well  as  on  the  flanks.     Stretching 


BY  THE  LEFT  179 

back  to  the  whale-back  itself  beyond  the  heights  of 
the  east  bank  were  other  heights,  even  more  com- 
manding, whose  reverse  slopes  offered  the  same 
kind  of  inviting  cover  for  long-range  artillery  as 
the  reverse  slopes  on  the  west  bank.  If  a  height  on 
one  bank  were  not  taken  at  the  same  time  as  the 
corresponding  height  on  the  other,  this  meant  mur- 
derous exposure  for  the  men  in  the  attack  that  suc- 
ceeded. Therefore,  thrifty  and  fruitful  success  re- 
quired a  uniformity  of  movement  by  the  three  divi- 
sions of  the  First  Corps  in  conquering  the  heights 
of  both  banks  of  the  Aire  and  of  the  Forest's  edge. 

For  the  28th  the  taking  of  the  Chene  Tondu  was 
the  keystone  of  the  advance.  Until  it  had  this 
height,  the  28th  could  not  support  the  movement  of 
the  77th  in  the  Forest  or  of  the  35th  on  the  east  bank 
of  the  Aire.  The  Germans  had  concentrated  their 
immediate  reserves  on  the  Chene  Tondu,  and  their 
guns  on  its  supporting  heights. 

If  the  German  staff  had  planned  the  woods  in 
front  of  the  main  slopes  of  Chene  Tondu,  they 
could  hardly  have  been  in  a  better  location  for 
affording  invisibility  to  machine-gun  nests  against  a 
visible  foe.  To  have  taken  the  Chene  Tondu  by 
one  fell  rush,  as  our  staff  desired,  might  have  been 
possible  through  sheer  weight  of  man-power  by  the 
mustering  of  all  the  division's  infantry  against  one 
sector  of  its  front,  supported  by  the  artillery  of  two 


1 8o  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

or  three  divisions  with  unlimited  ammunition.  The 
artillery  of  the  28th  was  not  up.  It  was  having  the 
same  trouble  about  roads  as  the  artillery  of  other 
divisions.  When  the  officers  of  the  28th  scouted 
the  avenues  of  approach  in  order  to  maneuver  their 
infantry  units  economically,  they  found  none  which 
would  not  require  that  we  charge  across  open  and 
rising  ground  against  an  enemy  whose  strength  our 
men  were  to  learn  by  "  feeling  it "  in  an  attack  with- 
out adequate  shields  into  concentrations  of  shell-and 
machine-gun  fire  which  became  the  more  powerful 
the  more  ground  they  gained. 

Availing  themselves  of  every  possible  opening 
where  the  enemy's  fire  was  relatively  weak,  they 
forced  their  way  into  the  village  of  Apremont  in 
the  valley.  As  soon  as  this  success  was  known  to 
him,  the  enemy  made  up  for  any  neglect  in  prevision 
by  bringing  guns  and  machine-guns  into  position  to 
command  the  village.  Wherever  the  Pennsylvanians 
made  a  thrust,  if  a  savage  reception  were  not  primed 
awaiting  them,  one  was  soon  arranged.  Their 
maneuvers  were  further  hampered  by  the  bends  of 
an  unfordable  river,  which  a  direct  attack  for  any 
great  depth  would  have  to  cross  and  recross  under 
the  interlocking  fire.  Troops  on  the  narrow  river 
bottom  were  visible  as  flies  on  a  wall.  Every  hour 
German  resistance  was  strengthening  in  the  Aire 
sector  as  in  other  vital  sectors  along  the  front. 


BY  THE  LEFT  181 

Their  guns  up,  the  division  attacked  the  Chene 
Tondu  a  second  time  in  the  vigor  of  renewed  con- 
fidence and  in  the  light  of  the  knowledge  they  had 
gained  of  the  enemy's  dispositions.  They  won  a 
footing;  and  then  attacked  again.  Their  effort  now 
became  incessant  in  trying  to  make  more  bites  at 
close  quarters,  as  they  struggled  for  complete  mas- 
tery. The  Germans  infiltrated  back  between  our 
units,  and  we  infiltrated  forward  between  theirs. 
We  might  think  that  we  had  possession  of  ground 
over  a  certain  portion  of  front,  only  to  find  that  our 
efforts  to  "  mop  up  "  were  thwarted.  With  Chene 
Tondu  partly  conquered  in  the  search  for  advantage 
in  maneuver,  we  moved  on  the  Taille  l'Abbe  in 
flank;  and  there  we  found  the  Germans,  thanks  to 
their  fresh  reserves,  in  irresistible  force.  They 
were  firing  prodigal  quantities  of  gas-shells  wherever 
our  men  took  cover  in  any  stretch  of  woods  they 
had  conquered. 

The  35th  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Aire  was  meet- 
ing with  deadly  opposition  which  held  it  back,  as 
we  shall  see  when  its  story  is  told.  Maintaining 
liaison  on  the  heights  of  the  east  bank  with  the  28th 
astride  the  river  was  fraught  with  the  same  ele- 
ments of  confusion  as  with  the  77th  in  the  monstrous 
irregularity  of  the  escarpments  on  the  Forest's  edge. 
To  which  division  belonged  the  khaki  figures  break- 
ing out  of  a  ravine  in  an  effort  to  rush  a  machine- 


1 82  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

gun  nest  which  held  them  at  its  mercy?  One  thing 
was  certain:  they  must  either  advance  or  retreat. 
Under  the  whip  of  impulse  as  well  as  orders  they 
tried  to  advance.  Messages  exchanged  between 
neighboring  division  headquarters,  under  the  pres- 
sure of  the  Corps  command  to  get  ahead,  were  de- 
pendent upon  reports  long  in  coming  out  of  the 
recesses  of  the  woods.  Each  division  staff  in  its 
faith  in  the  courage  of  its  men,  who  were  fighting 
on  their  nerves  after  sleepless  nights,  insisted  that 
it  was  doing  its  part  and  would  be  up — and  that,  by 
God!  it  was  up. 

The  possession  of  the  Aire  heights  was  all  impor- 
tant to  the  Army  command,  still  undaunted  in  its 
ambition  for  the  immediate  conquest  of  the  whale- 
back  in  those  fateful  days  at  the  end  of  September. 
On  the  29th  two  Leavenworth  men  from  Grand 
Headquarters  itself — while  two  regular  colonels 
were  sent  to  regiments — were  put  in  command  of 
the  brigades  of  the  28th.  One  of  the  colonels  was 
killed  before  he  took  over  his  command,  and  the 
other  later  in  leading  a  charge.  On  the  30th  the 
division  was  to  make  another  general  attack,  sup- 
ported by  all  available  artillery  and  tanks;  but  a  few 
minutes  before  the  infantry  were  to  charge,  the  Ger- 
mans developed  a  counter-attack  in  force.  Their 
troops  were  middle-aged  Landwehr  men,  who  made 
up  in  spirit  what  they  lacked  in  youth.     They  had 


BY  THE  LEFT  183 

been  told  that  theirs  was  the  opportunity  to  help 
the  Fatherland  in  a  critical  moment  against  these 
untrained  Americans.  The  courage  with  which  they 
persisted  in  their  charge  was  worthy  of  a  better 
cause.  It  recalled  the  freshness  and  abandon  of 
German  volunteers  in  the  first  battle  of  Ypres. 
Our  infantry,  already  in  line  to  advance  over  the 
same  ground  as  the  counter-attack,  received  it  with 
a  merciless  fire  which  its  ranks  kept  breasting  in 
fruitless  sacrifice.  Our  tanks,  waiting  to  move  for- 
ward with  our  infantry  at  the  moment  set  for  our 
own  attack,  carried  out  their  program  and  lit- 
erally rolled  over  many  of  the  survivors  of  the 
charge  in  which  our  youth  had  learned  some  respect 
for  age.  Our  attack  was  countermanded,  and  the 
next  day  was  October  1st,  which  was  to  mark 
another  period  of  the  battle,  as  I  have  said. 

It  had  been  a  good  policy  in  more  senses  than 
one  to  send  regulars  to  take  command  of  the 
brigades  of  the  28th.  Assigned  for  the  purpose  of 
seeing  that  the  division  "  pushed  ahead,"  when  they 
looked  over  the  situation  their  conclusions  were  a 
supreme  professional  tribute  to  the  magnificent  per- 
sistence of  the  Pennsylvanians,  who  had  already 
earned  the  sobriquet  of  the  Iron  Division  in  place 
of  that  of  the  Keystone  Division.  Short  of  food, 
without  sleep,  saturated  by  rain  and  gas,  the  men 
of  the  28th  had  won  their  gains  with  superb  and. 


1 84  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

tireless  initiative,  and  held  them  with  grim  tenacity. 
In  a  burning  fever  of  loyal  effort,  their  vitality  had 
been  ungrudgingly  expended.  They  staggered  from 
fatigue  when  they  rose  to  charge.  Not  only  was  all 
the  area  of  advance  under  shell-fire,  but  that  road 
through  Varennes  which  both  the  28th  and  the  35th 
were  using  was  exposed  to  ruthless  and  well-calcu- 
lated blasts  from  many  guns,  disrupting  communica- 
tions and  further  delaying  the  congested  transport. 
The  new  brigade  commanders,  with  staff  school  edu- 
cation and  staff  experience,  as  became  practical  men 
when  face  to  face  with  nerve  and  physical  strain 
which  put  limitations  of  human  endurance  upon  the 
will  of  the  high  command,  accepted  their  lesson, 
which  they  applied  by  withdrawing  units  to  give 
them  rest,  and  having  the  units  remaining  in  front 
"  dig  in,"  while  processes  of  reorganization  accom- 
panied a  phase  of  recuperation  during  the  coming 
lull  in  the  battle. 

The  same  devoted  offering  of  strong  and  willing 
men  in  the  flush  of  aggressive  manhood  by  the 
Kansans  and  Missourians  of  the  35th,  on  the  left 
of  the  28th,  which  had  the  heaviest  casualty  list  of 
any  division  from  September  26th  to  October  1st, 
was  not  to  have  the  good  fortune  of  such  understand- 
ing direction.  Kansas  and  Missouri  took  all  their 
pride  as  well  as  their  natural  courage  and  hardihood 
into  this  battle.     Their  left  flank  was  from  the  first 


BY  THE  LEFT  185 

on  the  heights  to  the  east  of  the  Aire  in  full  view 
of  the  Forest  edge  and  its  escarpments.  On  the 
right  they  were  swinging  toward  the  heights  west 
of  Montfaucon.  The  particularly  dense  fog  hug- 
ging the  ground  on  their  front  in  the  first  hour  of 
their  advance  made  the  liaison  between  the  bat- 
talions difficult  from  the  start.  The  two  formidable 
heights  of  Vauquois  hill  and  the  Rossignol  Wood 
were  masked  by  troops  sweeping  speedily  by  them 
on  either  side  in  brilliant  fashion,  and  left  to  the 
battalions  detailed  for  the  purpose,  which  cleaned 
them  up  with  thoroughgoing  alacrity.  Meanwhile 
the  frontal  line  drove  ahead  against  machine-gun 
fire  in  front  and  flanking  artillery  fire  from  the 
right  until  it  was  in  the  vicinity  of  Cheppy. 

As  we  already  know,  there  had  been  trouble  im- 
mediately in  Varennes,  where  the  35th  was  linked 
with  the  28th.  The  35th  received  both  shells  and 
machine-gun  fire  from  the  high  ground  of  the  town 
and  from  the  heights  which  were  firing  down  on  the 
28th.  Both  division  reports  speak  of  having  taken 
Varennes,  which  is  well  spread  on  the  river  banks. 
There  was  room  enough  for  the  troops  of  both  to 
operate,  with  plenty  of  work  for  both  to  do  before 
their  common  efforts  had  cleared  the  ruins  of  their 
infestuous  occupants.  The  tanks  also  had  a  part  in 
this  success.  Wherever  there  was  anything  like 
favorable  ground  in  that  irregular  landscape,  they 


1 86  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

did  valuable  service ;  and  they  tried  to  pass  through 
woods  and  across  ravines  which  only  sublime  audac- 
ity would  have  attempted — and  sometimes  they  suc- 
ceeded. Their  visibility  at  short  range  to  the 
numerous  enemy  batteries  made  any  part  in  the  bat- 
tle by  them  seem  suicidal. 

The  formation  for  the  attack  was  by  brigades  in 
column :  that  is,  one  of  the  two  brigades  in  reserve 
behind  the  other  that  took  the  lead.  On  that  first 
day,  when  a  regiment  of  the  frontal  brigade  was 
stopped  by  casualties,  another  was  sent  through  it. 
The  plan  was  to  crowd  in  the  eager  men.  It  was 
their  first  big  fight.  They  had  impatiently  trained 
for  this  chance.  The  individualism  of  these  stal- 
wart high-strung  Middle  Westerners  was  allowed 
full  rein.  To  them  a  fight  meant  that  you  did  not 
give  the  enemy  any  time  to  think;  you  forced  the 
issue  with  smashing  rights  and  vicious  uppercuts  at 
the  start,  a  robust  constitution  receiving  cheerfully 
and  stoically  any  punishment  inflicted  as  you  sought 
a  knockout. 

Therefore  flanking  fire  was  only  a  call  to  pressing 
the  enemy  harder  and  having  the  business  the 
sooner  finished.  There  was  no  waiting  for  guns  to 
come  up,  as  Cheppy  on  the  right  was  taken  soon 
after  Varennes  on  the  left.  Losses,  particularly  of 
senior  officers,  were  becoming  serious  by  this  time; 
units,  though  scattered  and  intermingled  in  the  fog, 


BY  THE  LEFT  187 

only  wanted  direction  to  go  on.  Having  been  re- 
organized and  being  supported  by  fresh  battalions, 
the  advance  continued.  By  night  the  35th's  left  was 
well  north  of  Varennes,  its  right  near  Very,  and  the 
approaches  to  Charpentry  had  been  gained.  On 
that  first  day  the  35th,  fighting  against  flanking  and 
frontal  artillery  and  machine-gun  fire,  had  made 
four  miles  in  mastering  the  east  bank  of  the  trough 
of  the  Aire;  but  it  had  paid  a  price  which  was  a 
tragic  if  splendid  tribute  to  the  courageous  initiative 
of  its  men.  The  artillerists  were  working  hectically 
to  bridge  the  little  streams  for  their  pieces;  that 
one-way  bridge  which  two  divisions  were  trying  to 
use  through  Varennes  congested  the  other  traffic. 
According  to  the  division  report,  instead  of  proper 
rations  for  the  troops,  there  was  an  issue  of 
fresh  meat  and  vegetables  with  no  means  for 
cooking. 

The  divisional  artillery  was  expected  to  be  up  by 
eight  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  27th  to  renew 
the  attack,  but  higher  authority  could  not  wait  on  its 
support.  In  full  realization  of  the  strength  of  the 
enemy's  artillery,  Corps  orders  to  advance  at  5  A.M. 
must  be  obeyed,  with  only  one  battalion  of  light 
guns  to  protect  the  men  in  an  endeavor  that  must 
be  far  more  costly  than  yesterday's.  The  Kansans 
and  Missourians  were  of  the  stock  that  can  fight  to 
a  finish;  and  they  were  expected  to  fight  to  a  finish. 


1 88  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

The  70th  Brigade,  whose  units  had  already  been 
engaged  and  had  been  all  day  under  more  or  less 
fire  and  advancing  behind  the  69th,  was  put  in  front, 
with  the  69th  in  close  reserve,  ready  to  take  up  the 
battle  when  the  70th  had  suffered  too  heavily. 

Overnight  the  enemy  had  reinforced  the  com- 
manding position  of  Charpentry,  which  was  the 
keypoint  of  his  line  of  defense  against  the  35th.  It 
sent  down  gusts  of  machine-gun  fire  while  the  in- 
creased enemy  artillery  on  both  flanks  played  on 
the  open  fields  of  advance,  where,  after  the  attack 
slowed  down,  the  men  continued  to  spring  up  and 
charge,  in  the  hope  that  they  had  found  an  opening, 
only  to  be  met  with  machine-gun  fire  from  unex- 
pected quarters.  Tanks  having  been  brought  up  and 
reorganization  effected,  another  general  rush  was 
made,  which  aroused  such  a  torrent  of  fire  that  the 
infantry,  without  their  shields  for  advance,  could 
only  seek  what  protection  they  could  dig  or  find  in 
gullies  behind  banks  or  in  shell-holes. 

The  artillery,  which  had  worked  ceaselessly  all 
night  and  day  to  get  forward,  was  now  arriving,  and 
with  its  support  a  new  advance,  which  crowded  in 
more  troops,  was  undertaken  at  5.30  in  the  after- 
noon. The  artillery  silenced  some  of  the  machine- 
gun  nests,  though  it  could  not  reach  the  enemy  bat- 
tery positions;  but  by  the  grace  of  their  undaunted 
determination    and   energy  the    Kansans    and    Mis- 


BY  THE  LEFT  189 

sourians  took  both  Charpentry  and  the  town  of 
Baulny.  In  the  darkness  some  daring  units  pressed 
through  the  Montrebeau  Wood,  while  the  main  line 
dug  in  near  Baulny  to  secure  what  protection  it 
could  from  the  shells  whose  flashes  illumined  vigor- 
ous spading,  which  had  an  incentive  in  the  vicious 
singing  of  the  fragments. 

It  had  been  another  costly  day,  and  the  night  that 
followed  was  ghastly  for  the  wounded.  They  were 
gathered  from  the  field  under  incessant  bursts  of 
machine-gun  fire;  and  when  they  were  brought  in, 
the  crowded  roads  made  their  evacuation  horribly 
slow.  The  struggle  to  force  ammunition  and  sup- 
plies forward  over  the  main  road  did  not  relax  in 
the  area  behind  the  troops,  where  all  through  the 
night  the  German  artillery,  which  had  the  ap- 
proaches to  Charpentry  and  Baulny  perfectly  regis- 
tered, kept  up  a  fire  shrewdly  calculated  to  block  a 
movement  every  time  it  started. 

All  the  artillery  was  now  up  to  support  the  troops 
being  re-formed  for  another  attack  at  daybreak, 
which  was  preceded  by  a  counter-attack  of  the  enemy 
which  was  promptly  repulsed.  More  open  spaces 
than  yesterday  must  be  crossed  in  full  view  of  the 
enfilading  batteries,  particularly  those  firing  from 
the  west  bank  of  the  Aire.  Ground  was  gained  all 
along  the  front:  ground  important  for  the  terrible 
day's  work  that  was  to  follow.    While  the  wounded, 


1 9o  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

suffering  from  exposure,  were  walking  back  or  being 
carried  back  across  the  shelled  fields  and  along  the 
shelled  roads,  the  survivors  must  spend  the  night  in 
leaving  nothing  undone  to  insure  the  success  of  the 
next  morning's  attack,  which  was  to  capitalize  every 
atom  of  vitality  remaining  in  this  hard-driven  divi- 
sion. Again  the  men  were  short  of  regular  rations; 
and  the  fresh  beef  and  vegetables  which  were  again 
forced  upon  them  could  not  be  cooked.  It  was  raw 
fighting,  indeed,  on  raw  meat  and  raw  potatoes 
which  was  expected  of  the  35th.  Incidentally  the 
divisional  transport  was  short  fourteen  hundred 
horses. 

The  loss  of  officers  in  their  gallant  exposure  to 
keep  up  the  liaison  of  the  units  had  continued  severe. 
For  this  reason  alone  the  35th,  which  was  having  its 
first  battle  experience,  was  unprepared  for  a  far  less 
onerous  task  than  that  now  assigned  it.  With  nerve 
strength  in  place  of  physical  strength,  with  will  in 
place  of  adequate  organization,  the  division  was  sent 
into  a  veritable  alley,  which  could  be  swept  by  artil- 
lery fire  from  the  Forest  edge  across  the  Aire  as 
well  as  from  the  other  flank  and  in  front.  The 
instant  the  attack  began,  the  enemy  guns  concen- 
trated with  a  pitiless  accuracy  and  a  volume  of  fire 
completely  surpassing  that  of  the  other  days.  In 
places  the  advance  was  literally  blasted  to  a  stand- 
still. 


BY  THE  LEFT  191 

The  village  of  Exermont  which  was  the  main  goal 
was  mercilessly  exposed  in  that  ravine  where  the 
enemy  shell-fire  had  the  play  of  a  cataract  through 
a  gorge.  Some  men  actually  reached  the  village, 
but  they  could  not  remain  there  alive.  Groups 
charging  for  what  seemed  cover  only  ran  into 
more  shell-bursts.  The  dead  and  wounded  lay  in 
"  bunches  "  under  the  continuing  blasts  which  dis- 
rupted organization,  while  officers  in  trying  to  re- 
store it  sacrificed  themselves.  There  was  no  want 
of  courage;  but  the  division  was  undertaking  the 
impossible.  Every  spurt  of  initiative  was  as  futile 
as  thrusting  a  finger  into  a  stove  door.  Confused 
orders  were  further  confused  in  transmission. 

When  night  of  the  29th  came,  there  was  nothing 
to  do  but  for  the  35th  to  withdraw,  for  lack  of  any 
means  of  supporting  them,  its  exposed  units  from 
Montrebeau  Wood  and  Exermont.  The  ravine 
could  not  be  held  until  the  guns  commanding  it 
were  silenced  and  fresh  troops  in  numbers  were 
summoned.  A  willing  horse  had  been  driven  to  its 
death.  The  35th's  units  had  been  crowded  into  the 
front  line  until  the  only  reserves  it  had  were  men 
too  exhausted  from  fighting  to  move.  On  the  30th 
a  defensive  position  was  organized.  A  battalion 
of  the  82nd  Division,  brought  up  with  a  view  to  re- 
newing the  attack,  met  a  killing  barrage  which 
warned  commanders  that  advancing  one  fresh  bat- 


192  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

talion  was  only  throwing  more  cannon-fodder  into 
the  ravine. 

Throughout  the  30th  the  men  of  the  35th  held 
their  ground  under  continuous  artillery  fire,  which 
could  not  keep  many  from  falling  asleep  in  their 
exhaustion;  but  they  were  awakened  to  retributive 
zeal  by  two  German  counter-attacks,  their  marks- 
manship being  a  warning  to  the  enemy  that  though 
they  had  not  the  strength  to  advance  they  still  knew 
how  to  shoot.  On  the  night  of  the  30th  the  35th 
was  relieved  by  the  veteran  1st  Division.  Gaunt 
and  staggering,  shadows  of  the  sturdy  figures  which 
had  advanced  on  the  26th,  the  survivors  plodded 
back  to  rest  billets,  to  find  that  in  some  quarters  the 
view  was  held  that  the  division  had  done  badly.  No 
more  inconsiderate  reflection  upon  brave  men  was 
ever  engendered  in  the  impulses  of  battle  emotion, 
with  its  hasty  judgment. 

In  an  advance  of  over  six  miles  the  35th  had  suf- 
fered 6,312  casualties.  Nearly  half  of  its  infantry 
was  dead  on  the  field  or  in  hospital.  The  other  half 
was  in  a  coma  from  fatigue.  Every  rod  gained  had 
been  won  by  fighting  against  fire  as  baffling  as  it  was 
powerful.  To  say  that  the  35th  fought  for  five 
days  as  a  division  is  hardly  doing  it  justice.  A  divi- 
sion may  be  said  to  be  fighting  when  only  one 
brigade  is  in  line  while  the  other  is  resting.  All  the 
men  of  the  35th  were  fighting.    There  were  soldiers 


BY  THE  LEFT  193 

who  did  not  have  five  hours'  sleep  in  that  period  of 
unbroken  battle  strain  in  the  midst  of  the  dead  and 
dying.  Only  the  powerful  physique  of  the  men, 
with  their  store  of  reserve  energy  which  they  drew 
on  to  the  last  fraction,  enabled  them  to  bear  it  as 
long  as  they  did.  Their  courage  and  endurance  and 
dash  performed  a  mighty  service  in  a  most  critical 
sector.  Instead  of  being  the  object  of  any  ungen- 
erous reflections  by  captious  pedants  or  commanders 
who  did  not  know  how  to  command,  after  they  had 
given  their  generous  all  they  should  have  been  wel- 
comed with  a  warmth  of  praise  in  keeping  with 
their  proud  and  justifiable  consciousness  that  they 
had  done  their  red-blooded  best. 


XII 


BY  THE  CENTER 

The  wooded  front  of  the  Fifth  Corps — Where  the  Germans  dis- 
counted the  chance  of  an  attack — Particularly  by  a  division 
that  had  never  been  under  fire — The  Pacific  Coast  men 
through  the  woods  for  a  five-mile  gain — And,  its  artillery  up, 
keeps  on  for  nearly  as  much  more — Into  a  dangerous  position 
which  cannot  be  held — The  "hand-made"  attack  of  the 
Ohioans — Surprise  carries  them  in  a  rush  through  the  pathless 
woods — Three  days  of  unsupported  advance  against  counter- 
attacks— Open  country  for  the  advance  of  the  79th  up  the 
valley  to  Montfaucon — And  open  country  beyond  toward 
Nantillois   and  the  whale-back — The  79th  "  expended." 

Cameron's  Fifth  Corps,  which  made  the  central 
drive  head  on  to  the  whale-back,  relied,  in  master- 
ing the  distance  it  ha^l  to  cover  on  the  first  day  as 
the  "  bulge "  of  the  Army  movement,  upon  the 
freshness  of  its  troops,  whose  inexperience  would 
be  only  another  incentive  to  hold  up  their  end.  No 
aspect  of  the  plan  of  our  command  was  more  auda- 
cious or  more  thrilling  than  the  decision  to  expend 
in  one  prodigious  ruthless  effort  the  energy  of  the 
37th,  79th,  and  91st  Divisions  and  their  impatience 
for  action  accumulated  in  their  long  period  in  train- 
ing camps. 

It  was  in  this  that  we  defied  accepted  standards; 
in  this  that  we  carried  to  the   seemingly  quixotic 

194 


o 


BY  THE  CENTER  195 

limit  our  confidence  in  our  ability  to  transform  on 
short  notice  citizens  into  soldiers  who  would  go  bolt 
from  the  drill-ground  into  a  charge  that  was  to  take 
an  elaborate  trench  system  as  the  prelude  of  from 
five  to  six  miles  of  advance  in  the  days  of  mobile 
interlocking  machine-gun  fire.  Anyone  who  was 
surprised  that  they  did  not  go  as  far  as  they  were 
told  to  go  on  the  first  day  had  forgotten  the  power 
of  modern  weapons  in  defense,  and  was  oblivious 
of  the  military  significance  of  the  ground  which  the 
Corps  had  to  traverse. 

The  right  division,  the  79th,  had  before  it  a  com- 
paratively woodless  stretch  following  the  Esnes- 
Montfaucon  road  among  the  hills  to  Montfaucon, 
but  the  other  two  divisions  faced  the  German 
trenches  at  the  edge  of  a  deep  belt,  or  rather  mass, 
of  woods  as  dense  as  the  Argonne,  which,  though 
broken  by  only  one  open  space  of  a  breadth  more 
marked  than  a  roadway,  had  sectional  names — 
Montfaucon,  Very,  Bethincourt,  Cheppy,  Malan- 
court, — each  taken  from  the  name  of  the  nearest 
neighboring  town.  The  store  which  the  Germans 
set  by  these  woods  had  been  shown  by  their  stub- 
born resistance  to  the  attacks  of  the  French  for 
their  possession  in  19 15. 

When  the  Germans  detected — as  they  did  despite 
our  care — unusual  activity  on  our  roads  in  this  sec- 
tor during  the  later  stages  of  our  preparations,  they 


196  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

made  the  raid  of  September  22nd,  already  men- 
tioned, which  took  a  man  of  the  79th  prisoner;  but 
evidently  they  did  not  learn  from  him  of  the  pres- 
ence of  the  other  two  divisions.  German  prisoners 
said  that  an  Allied  attack  was  expected  along  the 
whole  front  from  Metz  to  Champagne,  but  that  it 
would  be  limited  to  the  front-line  positions — a  feint, 
to  cover  the  offensive  from  Soissons  to  the  Channel. 
Certainly  the  enemy  had  no  thought  that  we  would 
try  to  storm  the  woods  on  the  first  day.  On  Sep- 
tember 1 8th  a  memorandum  of  the  1st  German 
Guard  Division,  in  occupation  of  this  sector,  said: 

It  is  unlikely  that  the  enemy  will  direct  his  attack  against 
the  wooded  territory  in  Sector  K  (Cheppy  Wood)  or  against 
the  neighboring  sectors  on  our  left.  He  would  have  to  meet 
an  unknown  situation,  and  to  advance  through  the  heavy 
underbrush  of  the  woods,  which  are  totally  secured  from 
observation,  would  be  very  difficult.   .    .    . 

It  is  only  in  the  case  of  a  deliberate  offensive  against  the 
whole  front  of  the  Group  or  Army  that  there  should  be 
any  retirement  to  the  main  line  of  resistance  (the  Lai  Fuon 
ravine). 

The  main  line  of  resistance  must  be  held  in  any  event. 

The  Lai  Fuon  ravine  really  bisected  the  woods 
transversally  into  two  masses  or  belts.  In  describ- 
ing the  action  of  the  Corps,  which  had  the  mission 
of  taking  the  ravine  and  both  sections  of  the  woods, 
I  shall  begin  with  the  91st  Division,  National  Army 


BY  THE  CENTER  197 

from  the  Pacific  Slope,  on  the  left.  The  91st  had 
never  been  in  any  except  a  practice  trench,  or  heard 
a  bullet  or  shell  fired  in  battle,  when  it  went  into 
position  for  the  attack.  On  its  left  was  the  35th 
of  the  First  Corps,  and  on  its  right  the  37th  of  its 
own  Fifth  Corps.  For  artillery  the  91st  had  that 
of  the  33rd,  and  a  battalion  from  the  82nd.  The 
fact  that  the  33rd  was  also  using  borrowed  artillery 
in  its  own  attack  is  sufficiently  indicative  of  the 
character  of  the  hasty  and  heterogeneous  mobiliza- 
tion of  our  unprepared  army  for  the  battle. 

The  Pacific  Coast  men  had  traveled  far,  clear 
across  the  Continent  and  across  the  Atlantic.  Trav- 
eling was  in  their  line.  If  distance  had  kept  them 
from  reaching  the  front  as  soon  as  some  of  the 
eastern  divisions,  noticeably  those  praised  New 
Yorkers  of  the  77th,  they  would  show  that  they 
could  move  fast  and  stick  in  the  war  to  the  end. 
The  pioneer  heritage  was  theirs;  they  were  neigh- 
bors to  Alaska,  who  looked  toward  Asia  across  the 
Pacific:  big  men  who  thought  big  and  were  used  to 
doing  big  things.  Their  people  depended  upon  them 
for  great  deeds  worthy  of  their  homes  beyond  the 
Great  Divide.  As  the  National  Guard  divisions 
from  the  Pacific  Coast  had  had  the  misfortune, 
through  sudden  necessities  when  they  were  the  only 
available  men  in  depot,  to  be  cut  up  for  replace- 
ment, the  men  of  the  91st  had  as  an  intact  division 


198  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

a  special  responsibility  in  upholding  the  honor  of 
the  Coast. 

They  had  the  stamina  which  their  climate  breeds. 
They  were  under  no  apprehension  that  their  inex- 
perience in  battle  would  not  enable  them  to  take 
care  of  the  Germans  they  met,  once  they  were 
through  the  trenches  and  in  the  open.  As  men  of 
the  distances,  they  had  imagination  which  applied 
all  their  training  to  the  situations  which  they  would 
have  to  encounter.  No  veterans  ever  went  into  ac- 
tion with  more  confidence  than  these  draft  men. 
The  roar  of  the  surf  on  Pacific  beaches,  of  the  car- 
wheels  from  the  Coast  to  New  York,  of  the  steam- 
ship propellers  across  the  Atlantic,  was  the  song  of 
their  gathered  energy  suddenly  released  in  a  charge. 

The  wire  on  their  front  had  not  been  well  cut; 
but  what  might  have  been  a  justifiable  cause  for 
delay  they  overcame  in  an  intrepidity  of  purpose 
supported  by  a  team-play  which  prevented  confu- 
sion of  their  units.  Happily  the  prompt  taking 
by  the  stalwart  Kansans  and  Missourians  of  the 
Vauquois  hill  positions  commanding  the  cjist's  field 
of  advance,  which  had  been  the  object  of  the  French 
attacks  in  19 15,  removed  a  formidable  threat  on 
their  left.  The  Germans,  who  had  been  told  that  a 
division  which  had  never  been  under  fire  was  on  their 
front,  had  no  thought  that  it  would  attempt  a  seri- 
ous attack.    They  were  accordingly  the  more  unpre- 


BY  THE  CENTER  199 

pared  for  the  avalanche  of  man-power  which  came 
rushing  at  them.  Relatively  few  in  numbers, 
waiting  on  the  5th  Guard  Division  to  come  up  in 
reserve,  they  had  a  painfully  urgent  desire  to  start 
to  the  rear  and  meet  it  on  its  way  forward. 

If  the  uncut  wire  had  made  progress  slow  for  the 
men  of  the  91st  at  the  start,  once  these  fast  trav- 
elers were  past  the  fortifications,  they  stretched 
their  legs  in  earnest  as  they  rushed  through  the 
thickets  of  the  first  belt,  which  in  their  sector  was 
the  Cheppy  Wood,  in  a  practically  unbroken  ad- 
vance. When  they  came  out  in  front  of  the  Lai 
Fuon  ravine,  they  had  the  "  jump  "  on  the  enemy 
on  their  front.  He  had  not  the  numbers  to  form 
up  for  a  determined  defense  on  that  main  line  of 
resistance  which  he  was  supposed  to  hold  in  any 
event.  The  best  he  could  do  was  a  skilful  rear- 
guard action.  Speedy  as  they  were,  the  Pacific 
Coast  men  could  not  force  the  enemy,  who  sur- 
rendered or  withdrew  after  bursts  of  machine-gun 
fire,  to  close  with  the  bayonet,  as  they  desired. 

Having  fought  their  way  through  the  Very  Wood, 
the  narrowing  spur  of  the  second  belt,  which  ex- 
tended only  part  way  across  their  front,  they  had 
now  open  hilly  country,  for  the  most  part,  before 
them.  The  men  were  warmed  up  for  their  after- 
noon's work.  As  they  continued  to  gather  in  pris- 
oners, as  they  pressed  steadily  ahead  against  rear- 


2oo  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

guard  resistance,  they  maintained  the  liaison  of  their 
units  admirably.  By  nightfall  they  had  advanced 
nearly  five  miles.  The  Coast  might  well  be  proud 
of  its  sons  in  their  first  day's  battle. 

They  had  been  fortunate  in  preventing  congestion 
of  their  transport,  and  their  artillery  was  fast  com- 
ing up  in  support  when  they  attacked  with  unbroken 
vigor  the  next  morning.  They  were  to  find,  as  all 
other  divisions  found,  that  the  second  day  was  a 
different  kind  of  day  from  the  first.  As  all  their 
power  was  needed  on  the  27th  to  support  the  37th 
Division  in  its  attack  for  the  ridges  protecting 
Montfaucon,  all  four  regiments  were  put  into  line, 
with  orders  to  go  as  far  as  they  could,  regardless 
of  whether  or  not  their  ardor  carried  them  ahead 
of  the  other  divisions  into  a  salient.  They  drove  the 
enemy  out  of  the  positions  which  he  had  taken  up 
overnight,  and  continued  their  advance  in  repeated 
charges  against  his  increasing  resistance.  Parties 
charged  into  the  village  of  Epinonville  several  times, 
to  receive  a  blistering  cross-fire  from  positions  in 
flank  and  rear,  and  from  the  Cierges  Wood,  where 
the  German  machine-gunners  looked  down  upon  all 
the  streets  and  approaches  of  the  village. 

Though  its  flanks  were  still  exposed,  the  91st  was 
told  to  go  ahead  the  next  day,  the  plan  of  the  Army 
command,  as  we  have  seen,  being  to  use  all  the 
fight  there  was  in  every  division  on  the  28th,  when 


BY  THE  CENTER  201 

our  ambition  still  dared  an  immediate  conquest  of 
the  whale-back  after  the  taking  of  Montfaucon. 
Switching  now  to  a  two-regiment  front,  after  fifteen 
minutes  of  preparation  by  the  artillery,  which  was 
all  in  position,  the  Pacific  Coast  men  again  attacked 
on  the  third  day,  which,  in  turn,  they  were  to  find 
different  from  the  second.  While  the  guns  kept 
moving  forward  and  striving  to  lay  down  pro- 
tecting barrages  and  to  smash  machine-gun  nests, 
they  made  a  mile  and  a  half  against  resistance 
hourly  becoming  more  vicious  and  determined,  tak- 
ing Epinonville  and  entering  the  Cierges  Wood, 
which  was  to  earn  such  a  sinister  reputation. 

Despite  the  general  results  of  September  28th, 
which  had  somewhat  dampened  its  ambition  for  a 
prompt  decision,  the  Army  command,  now  seeking 
to  drive  a  wedge  into  the  heights  between  the  Aire 
and  whale-back  in  order  to  break  the  chain  of  its 
covering  defenses,  ordered  the  91st  to  continue  at- 
tacking on  the  29th.  The  two  regiments  in  the 
rear,  which  had  had  a  little  rest,  passed  through 
the  two  that  had  been  exhausted  by  the  hard  work 
in  front  on  the  28th.  Two  battalions  of  the  engi- 
neers, whose  indefatigability  had  kept  the  roads  in 
shape,  were  sent  into  line.  As  we  know,  the  engi- 
neers were  never  allowed  to  be  idle.  If  they  had 
nothing  else  to  do,  they  could  fight. 

The  morning  advance  drove  its  point  beyond  the 


202  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Cierges  Wood,  but  was  checked  by  merciless  fire 
from  Cierges  village  on  the  right.  Though  the 
front  was  in  a  salient,  still  the  orders  were  "  at  all 
costs  "  to  "  push  ahead."  At  3.40  that  afternoon, 
after  forty  minutes'  preparation  by  the  artillery, 
which  was  keeping  faithfully  up  to  the  infantry 
despite  the  weariness  of  horses  and  men,  the  right 
once  more  moved  forward  with  a  vigor  that  was 
amazing  after  the  four  days'  strain,  and  succeeded 
in  passing  through  Gesnes  and  in  gaining  a  footing 
in  Morine  and  Chene  Sec  Woods  on  its  left.  Every 
rod  farther  meant  an  increase  of  overwhelming 
cross-fire.  Either  there  must  be  support  on  the  flanks 
from  the  adjoining  divisions,  or  this  tongue  of  men 
thrust  into  furious  cross-fire  must  be  withdrawn. 
Support  could  not  be  given.  The  35th  Division 
on  the  left  was  stopped  in  the  shambles  of  the 
Exermont  ravine,  the  37th  on  the  right  was  facing 
counter-attacks.  Accordingly  on  the  night  of  the 
29th  the  91st  fell  back  to  the  front  of  the  morn- 
ing's gains.  The  32nd,  which  was  to  have  such 
hard  fighting  in  retaking  the  positions  which  the 
91st  had  temporarily  held,  was  to  relieve  it  on 
October  4th.  During  the  30th  the  91st  organized 
defensive  positions,  and  until  October  4th  held  its 
ground  under  continuous  artillery  and  machine-gun 
fire  as  well  as  harassing  blasts  of  machine-gun  bul- 
lets from  low-flying  enemy  aeroplanes.     Though  the 


BY  THE  CENTER  203 

men  were  suffering  from  exposure  and  diarrhea,  the 
whole  division  was  not  to  be  relieved.  The  181st 
Brigade,  under  Brigadier-General  John  B.  Mac- 
Donald,  was  assigned  to  the  1st  and  32nd  Divisions 
to  take  part  in  the  greater  effort  of  fresh  troops  to 
break  the  heights  between  the  crest  of  the  whale- 
back  and  the  Aire,  which  was  to  be  such  a  brilliant 
and  costly  exploit.  The  91st  had  advanced  for  a 
depth  of  nearly  eight  miles,  and  held  its  gains  for 
a  depth  of  nearly  seven  miles. 

It  might  be  said  that  the  37th  Division  had  had, 
as  National  Guardsmen,  a  longer  military  experi- 
ence than  the  other  two  divisions  of  the  Corps,  and 
some  trench  experience  in  a  tranquil  sector,  which, 
however,  was  slight  technical  preparation  for  the 
offensive  action  which  it  was  now  to  make.  If  ever 
there  was  a  "  hand-made  "  battle,  it  was  that  of 
the  Ohio  men.  For  artillery  they  had  the  brigade 
of  the  30th  Division,  which,  after  five  days'  hard 
marching  when  it  should  have  been  brought  by 
train,  arrived  with  its  men  exhausted  and  its  horses 
utterly  so.  There  were  no  French  guns  to  assist 
this  tired  artillery  brigade,  operating  with  a  division 
with  which  it  was  associated  for  the  first  time. 

Ohio's  predilection  for  politics  is  well-known;  and 
it  has  even  been  said  that  her  National  Guardsmen, 
took  some  interest  in  politics.  The  politics  of 
September  26th  was   Republican-Democrat-Socialist 


2o4  0UR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

politics, — all  the  political  genius  of  Ohio,  town  and 
country,  from  the  river  to  the  lake,  armed,  trained, 
and  resolute.  I  have  no  idea  what  part  these  sol- 
diers will  play  in  the  future  of  Ohio  elections;  but 
I  do  know  how  they  fought  in  the  Meuse-Argonne. 
It  is  something  that  Ohio  should  not  forget. 

Their  rush  through  the  trench  system  was  soon 
over.  Ahead  was  the  full  depth  of  nearly  four 
miles  of  the  Montfaucon  woods  which  I  have  al- 
ready described.  The  old  trench  system  was  partly 
in  the  midst  of  woodland  wreckage,  caused  by  long 
sieges  of  artillery  fire,  of  the  same  character  as  that 
facing  the  77th  in  the  Argonne  Forest.  In  its 
attack  through  the  thickets  the  37th  was  to  have  the 
assistance  of  no  scalloping  movement  in  forcing  the 
enemy's  withdrawal  from  its  front. 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  enemy's  conviction 
that  our  "  untrained  "  troops  would  not  have  the 
temerity  to  attempt  an  attack  which  comprised  the 
taking  of  this  deep  belt  of  woods;  and  do  not  forget 
that  half  way  through  the  belt,  which  it  really 
divided  into  two  sections,  was  the  Lai  Fuon  ravine. 
Here,  as  our  troops  emerged  to  descend  the  hither 
and  ascend  the  opposite  slope,  they  would  be  in  full 
view;  and  here,  in  the  edge  of  the  woods  on  the  far 
slope,  the  Germans  had  long  ago  organized  the  posi- 
tions for  that  main  line  of  resistance  which  the 
enemy  memorandum  of  September   18th  had  said 


BY  THE  CENTER  205 

must  be  held  in  any  event, — which  did  not  include, 
however,  the  event  of  a  drive  by  the  Ohio  men  of 
the  same  swiftness  as  that  of  the  Pacific  Coast  men 
on  their  left. 

Had  the  5th  German  Guard  Division  come  up  a 
little  earlier,  had  the  Germans  had  time  to  mass 
reserves  for  the  defense  of  the  ravine,  it  seems  im- 
possible that  it  could  have  been  conquered  without 
a  siege  operation.  The  value  of  taking  an  enemy 
by  surprise  and  audaciously  following  up  the  sur- 
prise was  singularly  illustrated  by  the  rushing  tactics 
of  the  Ohio  infantry,  who  cleared  the  whole  depth 
of  the  woods  on  the  first  day.  When  they  were 
halted,  it  was  not  for  long.  Theirs  was  no  cautious 
policy.  Their  reserves,  keeping  close  to  the  front 
line,  were  ready  instantly  to  add  their  weight  in  the 
balance  in  charging  any  refractory  machine-gun 
nests.  The  Germans  never  had  time  to  form  up  for 
prolonged  or  effective  resistance.  Their  familiarity 
with  the  woods  made  retreat  behind  the  screen  of 
underbrush  the  more  inviting  in  face  of  the  nu- 
merous figures  in  khaki  which  they  saw  swarming 
forward  through  the  openings  in  the  foliage.  In- 
stead of  a  determined  stand  on  the  Lai  Fuon  line, 
there  was  only  a  rearguard  action,  fitfully  though 
never  clumsily  carried  out  by  the  veteran  Prussians, 
in  their  injured  pride  at  having  to  yield  to  the 
American  novices. 


206  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

With  no  thought  except  to  keep  on  going,  when 
the  Ohioans  emerged  from  the  woods  into  the  open, 
they  pressed  on  toward  the  commanding  positions  of 
Montfaucon  on  their  right.  The  fact  that  there  was 
nothing  like  a  practicable  road  for  their  transport 
through  the  woods  behind  them  now  developed  a 
handicap  which  they  appreciated  keenly  in  their 
eager  appetites  and  the  thought  of  shields  for  the 
next  days'  attacks.  Though  tanks  and  artillery 
were  of  no  service  in  the  woods,  they  were  needed 
now.  The  tanks  assigned  to  assist  the  Ohioans  as 
they  came  into  the  open  did  not  arrive  until  the  eve- 
ning, when  they  were  short  of  gasoline.  The  artil- 
lery, by  the  use  of  snatch  ropes,  managed  to  bring 
up  one  battalion  of  guns  to  the  south  of  the 
ravine. 

When  rain  began  to  fall,  it  made  the  woodland 
earth  soft,  hampering  the  efforts  of  the  engineers, 
who  themselves  labored  without  food  all  the  day  and 
all  through  the  night  and  all  the  next  day  without 
pause,  as  they  dug  and  chopped  away  roots  and  cut 
saplings  for  corduroys  in  making  a  passage  through 
that  four-mile  stretch  of  forest — -and  foret  it  was 
though  called  a  bois — which  separated  the  fighters 
from  their  beleaguered  supplies.  Signal  corps 
carts,  so  necessary  to  lay  the  wire  for  the  communi- 
cations which  would  enable  the  infantry  to  send  in 
reports  and  receive  orders  promptly,  and  the  small 


BY  THE  CENTER  207 

arms  ammunition  carts,  which  would  keep  soldiers 
who  were  without  their  shields  from  being  without 
cartridges  as  well,  were  forced  through  by  dint  of 
an  arduous  persistence  in  answer  to  the  urgency  of 
the  call.  Rolling  kitchens  with  warm  meals  could 
do  no  more  rolling  than  if  they  were  hotel  kitchens. 
Ambulances  had  to  wait  at  the  edge  of  the  forest 
for  wounded  brought  three  and  four  miles  on 
stretchers  or  plodding  on  foot  or  hobbling  on  canes 
and  crutches  made  from  tree  limbs. 

Was  this  division,  with  its  artillery,  its  ammuni- 
tion trucks,  and  all  its  supplies  waiting  upon  a  road 
through  four  miles  of  the  forest  whose  time  of  com- 
pletion was  uncertain,  to  attack  the  next  day  after 
all  the  exertion  of  working  its  way  through  the 
forest?  Of  course.  The  Fifth  Corps  was  supposed 
to  take  Montfaucon  on  the  night  of  the  26th. 
Montfaucon  must  be  taken  on  the  27th,  and  early, 
too,  or  the  pencilings  on  the  maps  would  be  fatally 
behind  ambitious  objectives  in  the  center.  To  the 
west  of  Montfaucon  in  small  patches  of  woods  and 
on  crests  were  the  positions  of  the  Volker  Stellung, 
which  the  Germans  had  plotted,  though  they  had 
done  no  digging,  for  the  defense  of  Montfaucon; 
but  the  lines  where  trenches  were  to  be  dug  and  the 
points  machine-guns  were  to  occupy  had  been  care- 
fully assigned.  Therefore  units  of  reserves  as  they 
arrived  would  know  exactly  where  to  go  without 


koZ  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

loss  of  time.  Naturally,  we  wanted  to  attack  this 
position  while  it  was  still  weakly  held.  For  all  the 
Ohio  men  knew,  the  enemy  might  have  already  con- 
centrated there  in  force,  when  without  their  artil- 
lery, machine-guns,  or  trench  mortars,  uncertain 
even  of  a  constant  supply  of  small  arms  ammuni- 
tion, they  began  their  second  day's  action  at  the 
break  of  dawn.  In  swift  charges  the  right  over- 
ran the  ridges,  overwhelming  German  reserves,  who 
were  arriving  too  late,  on  their  way  forward.  By 
1 1  it  had  patrols  in  Montfaucon,  and  by  1.30  in 
the  afternoon  it  had  cleared  the  enemy  from  the 
cellars  as  well  as  from  the  steep  and  winding 
streets  of  the  town,  which  were  littered  with  the 
debris  of  buildings  that  had  crumbled  under  shell- 
fire. 

Against  the  left  brigade  the  Germans  did  not 
depend  upon  defensive  tactics  alone.  Their  reserves, 
more  prompt  in  arriving  than  on  the  right,  counter- 
attacked at  9  A.M.  to  stem  the  brigade's  advance. 
There  was  a  pitched  battle,  a  conflict  of  charges, 
for  a  fierce  half-hour;  but  the  brigade,  putting  in 
the  last  of  its  reserves,  won  the  mastery,  and  at 
9.30  was  in  pursuit  of  the  enemy.  An  hour  later  its 
advance  elements,  running  a  gamut  of  artillery  and 
machine-gun  fire,  were  in  the  village  of  Ivoiry. 
Now  turning  their  attention  to  the  conquest  of  Hill 
256  beyond  the  town,  which  was  lashing  them  with 


BY  THE  CENTER  209 

plunging  machine-gun  fire,  storming  parties  finally 
swept  over  the  crest;  but  their  exposure  to  the 
blasts  which  the  enemy  promptly  concentrated  made 
their  position  untenable.  With  the  left  holding  its 
gains  after  this  slight  withdrawal,  the  center  ad- 
vanced at  5.45  and  took  a  strong  and  threatening 
position  which  made  the  victory  of  the  day  more 
secure.  The  line  at  dark  was  along  the  Ivoiry- 
Montfaucon  road. 

After  the  exhaustion  of  fighting  its  way  through 
the  forest  on  the  first  day,  the  37th  had  used  every 
available  man  on  the  second  day.  The  engineers 
had  now  made  a  road  through  the  forest.  This, 
being  unequal  to  caring  for  all  the  transport  in  a 
steady  flow,  was  the  more  inadequate  owing  to  the 
delays  due  to  the  repair  of  sloughs,  which  were  al- 
ways appearing  at  some  point  in  its  four-mile  length. 
Hungry  infantrymen  lying  on  the  moist  ground 
were  wondering  if  they  would  ever  have  the  strength 
to  rise  again.  The  prodigal,  hasty  crowding  in  of 
reserves  which  necessity  required  had  exposed  all 
the  troops  to  the  widespread  artillery  fire  and  the 
long-range  sweep  of  bullets,  which  caused  many 
casualties. 

On  the  next  day,  the  28th,  the  Army  command, 
as  we  know,  was  to  call  for  a  supreme  effort  all 
along  the  line.  Despite  the  tireless  labor  of  the 
gunners  with  their  snatch  ropes,  most  of  the  37th's 


210  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

artillery  was  still  stalled  where  it  could  be  of  no 
service.  Without  their  shields  the  Ohio  men  again 
rose  to  the  attack  at  seven  on  the  morning  of  the 
28th.  In  half  an  hour  they  had  entered  the  Emont 
Wood  on  their  left  and  the  Beuge  Wood  on  their 
right.  They  continued  on  toward  the  village  of 
Cierges  until  the  blasts  of  fire  from  the  heights  and 
woods  of  the  whale-back,  not  only  upon  the  elements 
in  advance  but  upon  those  in  support,  forced  them 
to  take  cover.  They  were  now  within  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  of  the  Cierges-Nantillois  road.  Meanwhile 
the  Germans  had  been  filling  Emont  Wood  with 
phosgene  gas  to  such  an  extent  that  it  became  un- 
tenable. In  another  attack  at  5.45  P.M.  the  Ohio 
men  encircled  the  wood.  By  dark  their  outposts 
were  just  south  of  Cierges. 

Gettysburg  did  not  last  three  full  days,  but  any 
veterans  who  fought  throughout  that  battle  will 
have  some  idea  of  what  the  37th  Division  as  a 
whole  had  endured  on  September  26th,  27th,  and 
28th.  The  division  commander  reported  lack  of 
food  and  a  "  condition  of  almost  collapse  "  among 
his  men,  which  did  not  weaken  the  determination  of 
Corps  or  Army  to  expend  any  energy  remaining  in 
the  37th  in  another  effort  on  the  next  day  to 
"  crack  "  the  chain  of  heights  between  the  Aire  and 
the  whale-back.  How  fruitless  this  proved  only 
makes  the  final  effort  of  the  37th  the  more  appeal- 


BY  THE  CENTER  211 

ing.  The  Ohio  men  were  willing;  they  were  willing, 
after  shivering  on  wet  earth  all  night  without 
blankets,  as  long  as  they  had  strength  enough  to 
stagger  to  their  feet, — and  they  might  have  had 
more  strength  if  they  had  had  more  food.  There 
was  only  one  relieving  feature  of  their  situation,  so 
unfavorable  from  the  first.  A  German  water-point 
equal  to  supplying  the  whole  division  had  been  cap- 
tured. There  was  enough  to  drink,  if  not  enough 
to  eat:  that  is,  for  such  units  as  the  water-carts 
could  reach. 

Yet  Corps  and  Army  thought  the  37th  ought  to 
be  very  cheerful.  Hadn't  they  been  assigned,  on 
the  morning  of  the  28th,  ten  small  tanks  to  assist 
them  in  taking  Cierges?  The  tanks  were  moving 
gallantly  along  the  western  edge  of  Emont  Wood 
until  the  German  artillery,  from  the  heights  which 
had  them  in  plain  view,  concluded  that  they  had 
gone  far  enough,  and  put  them  out  of  action.  Then 
the  German  artillery  turned  its  undivided  attention 
to  assisting  the  German  infantry,  concentrating  its 
volume  upon  any  attempt  of  the  Ohioans,  whose 
brains  and  legs  were  numb  from  fatigue,  to  storm 
particularly  murderous  flanking  machine-gun  nests. 
Patrols,  creeping  up  ravines  and  dodging  bursts  of 
shells,  succeeded  in  entering  Cierges.  They  could 
not  be  supported  by  the  artillery,  which  was  now 
up,  as  it  had  run  out  of  ammunition.     Thus  our 


212  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

guns  were  silent  when  the  enemy  started  a  counter- 
attack beyond  Cierges;  but  the  vengeful  and  accu- 
rate fire  of  the  infantry  soon  sent  the  survivors  of 
the  advancing  German  wave  to  cover.  Later  the 
artillery,  having  received  some  ammunition,  when 
it  had  an  aeroplane  signal  of  the  Germans  massing 
for  another  counter-attack,  scotched  it  promptly.  If 
the  Germans  could  not  budge  us,  we  could  not  budge 
tjiem.  Every  time  we  showed  our  heads  in  any 
effort  for  another  gain,  we  stirred  up  a  hornet's 
nest  of  bullets  and  offered  a  fresh  target  for  a 
storm  of  shell-bursts. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  word  came  from  the  91st, 
asking  cooperation  from  the  37th  in  a  further  ad- 
vance to  relieve  pressure  on  the  wedge  it  had  driven 
past  the  fronts  of  its  neighbors.  The  fact  that  the 
message  was  two  hours  in  transit  was  sufficient  com- 
ment on  the  state  of  communication  between  divi- 
sions which  had  extended  themselves  to  the  limit 
of  their  power.  The  Ohio  men  who  were  already 
intrenching  might  still  be  willing  to  charge,  but  it 
was  the  willingness  of  the  spirit  rather  than  of  the 
flesh.  Had  every  gun  and  machine-gun  on  their 
front  there  on  the  threshold  of  the  whale-back  been 
silenced,  and  had  they  been  ordered  to  march 
another  two  miles  over  that  rough  ground,  a  ma- 
jority would  have  dropped  in  their  tracks  from  ex- 
haustion.   There  was  nothing  to  do  but  stick  where 


BY  THE  CENTER  213 

they  were.  This  was  as  easy  as  for  logs  of  wood 
to  lie  in  their  places.  They  fell  asleep  over  their 
spades,  and  the  bursts  of  high-explosive  shells  which 
shook  the  earth  did  not  waken  them.  All  they  asked 
of  the  world  was  rest  and  food. 

Remaining  in  a  stationary  line  all  the  next  day, 
they  had  recovered  enough  strength  to  march  back 
when  the  32nd  Division  relieved  them  on  the  night 
of  the  30th.  At  the  cost  of  3,460  casualties  their 
rushing  tactics,  keeping  the  jump  on  the  enemy,  had 
taken  1,120  prisoners  and  23  guns.  Fatigue  and 
sickness  from  exposure,  as  well  as  casualties,  had 
worn  them  down.  If  they  had  fought  with  less 
abandon  of  energy,  with  less  resolute  and  vivid 
spirit,  their  casualties  would  have  been  much  larger. 
From  the  first  they  had  thrown  in  all  their  reserves; 
and  to  the  end  they  had  fought  with  all  their  num- 
bers in  order  to  overcome  the  handicaps  of  their 
mission. 

On  the  right  of  the  Fifth  Corps  the  79th  Divi- 
sion, National  Army  from  the  Atlantic  Coast — 
Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia— was  to  have  its  baptism  of  fire  at  the  same 
time  as  the  Pacific  Coast  men  on  the  Corps  left, — 
a  baptism  preparing  it  for  its  memorable  service 
later  in  taking  Hill  378,  or  the  Borne  de  Cornouiller, 
on  the  east  bank  of  the  Meuse.  In  place  of  its  own 
artillery   brigade,    which   had   not   yet   received   its 


2i4  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

guns,  it  had  three  regiments,  less  six  batteries,  of  the 
veteran  artillery  of  the  32nd  Division,  and  one 
regiment  of  that  of  the  41st  Division,  National 
Guard  from  the  Pacific  Coast. 

As  one  of  the  two  divisions  which  had  never  been 
under  fire  before,  the  79th  had  been  given  the  far- 
thest objective  of  any  division.  The  German 
trenches  on  its  front  were  everywhere  in  the  open, 
crowning  a  gentle  ridge.  The  wire  had  been  badly 
cut,  but  the  Eastern  Coast  men  made  no  more  fuss 
over  that  handicap  than  their  neighbors.  When 
they  came  to  the  top  of  the  ridge,  they  might  see 
the  field  of  their  action,  in  its  relation  to  the  Army 
plan,  spread  before  them.  There  was  the  route  of 
their  advance,  following  a  valley  with  the  ribbon 
of  the  Esnes-Montfaucon  road  at  its  bottom,  and 
the  distant  ruins  of  Montfaucon  on  their  high  hill 
as  distinct  a  goal  as  the  stone  column  of  a  light- 
house on  a  shore.  They  were  not  only  to  take 
this  on  the  first  day,  but  to  pass  on  down  the 
slopes  beyond,  and,  conquering  patches  of  woods" 
and  ravines,  carry  their  flying  wedge  to  the  foot  of 
the  heights  of  the  whale-back.  On  the  second  day 
Army  ambition  designed  to  assail  the  whale-back 
itself,  as  we  know.  Well  might  these  inexperienced 
troops  have  asked  in  irony:  "  Is  that  all  you  expect 
of  us?  Don't  you  think  we  can  do  it  in  the  fore- 
noon, and  take  the  whale-back  in  the  afternoon,  so 


BY  THE  CENTER  215 

that  we  can  get  on  to  the  Lille-Metz  railway 
tomorrow?  " 

As  the  79th  had  open  country  to  traverse,  it  ought 
to  go  fast.  With  adjoining  divisions  clearing  the 
walls  of  the  valley  leading  up  to  Montfaucon,  it 
was  supposed  to  be  marching  over  a  boulevard  com- 
pared to  the  route  which  the  37th  had  in  the  Mont- 
faucon forest.  Indeed  every  division  was  given  the 
idea  that  all  it  had  to  do  was  to  keep  deployed  and 
moving  according  to  schedule.  As  for  the  distance 
itself  which  the  79th  had  to  travel,  any  golfer  may 
measure  it  as  two  and  a  half  times  that  of  an 
eighteen-hole  round,  with  a  quarter  of  the  distance 
through  traps  and  bunkers,  and  the  rest  altogether 
in  the  rough  of  a  surpassingly  hilly  course,  while  he 
carries  a  rifle  and  a  soldier's  pack  and  ammunition. 
In  the  immediate  foreground  was  a  belt  of  weed- 
grown  shell-craters,  their  edges  joining,  the  passage 
being  further  complicated  by  the  ruins  of  two  vil- 
lages— Haucourt  and  Malancourt — within  the  area 
of  the  trench  system.  On  the  left,  over  the  moist 
slippery  weeds  of  the  shell-craters,  the  men  could 
not  keep  pace  in  the  mist  with  the  barrage,  which 
hacl  been  made  specially  rapid  in  order  to  urge  them 
to  the  rapid  movement  required;  but  this  delay  did 
not  prove  important. 

From  Montfaucon  the  German  observers  could 
see  the  wave  of  khaki  figures  distinctly  as  they  came 


2l6 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


down  the  slope  toward  the  valley.  It  was  a  sight 
to  thrill  any  veteran  with  professional  admiration  of 
the  drill-ground  precision  of  these  young  soldiers  in 
dipping  and  rising  with  the  folds  of  the  ground. 
There  seemed  not  enough  superfluous  fat  among 
the  division's  privates  to  have  given  a  single  war 
profiteer  that  rotundity  with  which  we  associate  the 
corpulency  of  a  parvenu's  fortune.  They  were 
pantherishly  lean,  trained  down  to  elastic  sinews  and 
supple  muscles.  In  every  eye  there  was  a  direct  and 
eager  glance,  quick  in  response  to  any  order.  Look- 
ing at  these  thousands  of  athletes,  with  their  clean- 
cut  and  intelligent  faces,  one  was  not  surprised  that 
the  Army  command  thought  that  to  such  men  noth- 
ing was  impossible. 

For  the  first  three  hours  they  made  a  parade  of 
their  daring  mission  as  a  flying  wedge.  They  had 
only  to  continue  to  march,  each  man  guiding  by  the 
man  on  his  right  and  left,  while  the  sun  shone 
genially,  and  war,  once  they  were  through  the  trench 
system,  was  little  more  than  a  stroll  across  country 
in  excellent  company.  The  observers  on  Mont- 
faucon  might  not  gratify  the  appetite  of  their  eyes 
by  sending  over  barrages  of  shell-fire  into  such  a 
distinct  target.  All  the  Germans'  available  artillery 
force,  which  was  slight  at  that  time,  must  be  con- 
centrated elsewhere.  Let  those  American  amateurs 
come  on!     There  was  trouble  in  store  for  them. 


BY  THE  CENTER  217 

When  the  79th  came  down  into  the  valley,  a  hill 
in  front  of  Montfaucon  was  now  on  the  sky-line, 
instead  of  the  ruins  of  the  town.  There  were  hills 
all  around  them,  while  they  were  exposed  in  the 
valley  bottom.  To  the  right  in  the  4th  Division's 
sector  was  the  hill  and  village  of  Cuisy,  high 
points  in  a  series  of  irregular  commanding  slopes. 
On  the  left  was  the  Cuisy  Wood,  as  the  eastern  end 
of  the  Montfaucon  woods  was  called.  So  they  were 
between  the  two  Cuisys.  The  Cuisy  Wood  was  in 
the  79th's  sector.  The  machine-gun  nests  there 
served  notice  of  one  of  the  disadvantages  of  open 
country  when  they  began  firing  from  the  cover  on 
the  visible  foe.  Checked  by  this  fire,  and  forced  to 
take  cover  in  shell-craters  and  any  dead  spaces 
available,  the  Eastern  Coast  men  found  that  when- 
ever they  showed  themselves  the  air  cracked  and 
sung  with  bullets.  This  was  the  trouble  that  the 
Germans  had  in  pickle  for  them;  this  was  war  in 
earnest.  They  were  now  without  barrages.  They 
could  not  close  with  the  enemy  in  an  abandoned  rush 
through  a  screen  of  woodland:  the  enemy  had  all 
the  woodland  to  himself.  Moreover,  they  had  to 
advance  uphill  over  very  treacherous  ground. 

With  the  help  of  tanks  and  of  the  37th  exerting 
its  pressure  on  the  left,  Cuisy  Wood  was  taken 
after  three  hours'  fighting;  but  valuable  time  had 
been  lost.     The   center,   striving  to  pass  over  the 


2l8 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


crest  of  Hill  294  in  front  of  Montfaucon,  was 
blown  back  by  converging  blasts  from  machine-guns. 
Cuisy  and  the  ridges  on  the  right,  as  threatening 
as  those  on  the  left,  were  not  yet  taken.  The  79th 
was  in  an  open  area  of  interlocking  fire,  though  in 
a  lesser  degree  than  the  28th  in  the  valley  of  the 
Aire.  There  was  confusion  owing  to  errors  which 
were  not  always  those  of  the  young  officers  and  the 
men,  only  waiting  in  their  willingness  to  go  where 
they  were  told  against  any  kind  of  resistance.  One 
of  the  young  officers,  finding  himself  alone,  as  the 
morning  mist  lifted,  in  the  midst  of  machine-gun 
nests,  forced  the  gunners  to  surrender  and  to  point 
out  the  location  of  sixteen  other  nests. 

In  ratio  to  the  importance  of  the  thrust  of  the 
79th  was  the  responsibility  of  its  senior  officers, 
regimental  and  brigade.  They  had  come  to  test  in 
the  field  their  ability  as  professional  soldiers;  when 
the  amount  of  fat  they  had  accumulated  on  their 
bodies  and  in  their  minds  would  have  its  influence 
on  their  endurance  and  judgment.  There  was  con- 
tradiction in  commands;  uncertainty  in  decisions; 
higher  orders  were  not  carried  out.  In  one  case  the 
natural  military  initiative  of  a  tank  commander  gave 
the  word  to  advance,  which  was  all  that  the  men 
wanted.  Instead  of  reserves  being  sent  in  to  keep 
the  jump  on  the  enemy  by  swift  taking  of  positions, 
he   was   allowed  time   to   recover   his   morale   and 


BY  THE  CENTER  219 

bring  reinforcements  and  machine-guns  into  posi- 
tion. 

Corps  was  displeased  with  this  hesitation;  Army 
equally  so.  They  still  had  their  eyes  on  the  distant 
goal  that  they  had  set  for  the  day's  end.  The  79th 
was  told  to  press  on  at  dusk  and  that  it  was  expected 
to  reach  Nantillois  and  its  full  objective  during  the 
night.  This,  of  course,  required  only  the  writing 
of  a  message.  Without  artillery  support  a  regiment 
made  a  brave  and  fruitless  attempt  against  a  deluge 
of  hand-grenades  and  interlocking  machine-gun  fire. 
During  the  night  the  division  commander  relieved  a 
senior  officer  who  had  failed  to  carry  out  his  orders, 
read  lessons  to  others,  and  reorganized  his  com- 
mand. The  road  across  the  two  miles  of  trench 
system  and  of  shell-craters,  being  used  by  two  divi- 
sions, despite  the  work  of  the  engineers  was  wholly 
unequal  to  demands.  As  it  passed  over  a  ridge  the 
trucks,  sinking  into  sloughs  which  seemed  to  have 
no  bottom,  were  frequently  blocked  in  the  ascent. 

The  79th  had  two  battalions  of  artillery  up  when 
it  attacked  the  next  morning.  Now  it  had  its 
"  second  wind."  The  men  were  given  rein.  Prac- 
tically without  shields,  neither  shells  nor  hand- 
grenades  nor  bullets  could  stay  their  progress.  On 
the  right  they  began  driving  ahead  under  the 
flanking  machine-guns  of  Cuisy  before  dawn  at  4 
A.M.     On   the  left  they  started   at  7  A.M.     Their 


220  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

only  liaison  with  their  flanks  was  by  mounted  mes- 
senger, as  their  motorcycles  were  of  no  service  until 
Montfaucon  was  reached.  Their  units  intermingled 
with  those  of  adjoining  divisions,  and  advanced  with 
them  in  that  determined  rush  to  "  get  there."  By 
1 1  A.M.  the  79th  had  men  in  Montfaucon  with 
those  of  the  37th.  A  regiment  was  re-formed  and 
ordered  to  flank  Nantillois  on  the  right,  but  now, 
going  down  the  north  slopes,  it  was  in  full  view 
of  the  artillery  from  the  whale-back.  The  left  was 
stopped  in  the  Beuge  Wood.  It  had  been  a  day 
of  incessant  and  wearing  effort  of  the  same  kind 
that  the  37th  had  suffered.  The  road  was  in  better 
condition,  the  troops  received  some  though  not  suf- 
ficient food.  A  hundred  burros  were  invaluable  in 
bringing  up  ammunition. 

The  next  day  being  the  critical  28th,  the  orders 
were  for  the  79th  to  exert  itself  to  the  utmost.  It 
was  still  advancing  in  country  perfectly  open  to  view 
from  the  whale-back  and  its  covering  positions.  In 
the  morning  the  regiments  which  had  been  in  re- 
serve, now  being  in  front,  proved  that  woods  fight- 
ing was  no  monopoly  by  cleaning  up  all  the  machine- 
gun  nests  in  the  Beuge  Wood  and  storming  the 
ridge  beyond  Hill  268,  and  taking  Nantillois  be- 
fore noon.  Then  they  were  re-formed  and  given  a 
little  time  for  rest, — if  rest  was  the  word  for  hug- 
ging cover  under  incessant  shell-fire.     With  the  aid 


BY  THE  CENTER  221 

of  tanks  two  attacks  were  made  on  the  Ogons  Wood 
beyond  Nantillois  under  the  German  artillery  fire 
from  the  whale-back,  which  was  at  close  quarters 
and  as  accurate  as  the  plunging  machine-gun  fire 
which  accompanied  it. 

The  two  tanks,  so  inadequate  for  their  task,  did 
not  go  far  before  both  were  hit.  The  infantry  came 
near  enough  to  the  Ogons  to  realize  that  at  the  ratio 
of  the  increasing  resistance  our  survivors  who 
reached  it  would  be  hopelessly  unequal  to  taking 
the  machine-guns  firing  from  its  edge.  Withdrawal 
was  necessary  to  the  south  slopes  of  the  crest  in  the 
rear,  Hill  274,  if  the  troops  in  their  present  position 
were  not  to  be  offered  as  sacrifice  to  the  nests  of 
artillery  the  enemy  now  had  in  position.  Undaunted 
by  the  shell-fire  on  the  road,  the  transport  was  able 
that  night  to  reach  Montfaucon,  which  was  kept 
under  such  a  heavy  bombardment  that  there  was  no 
going  farther  without  blocking  the  road  with  wreck- 
age. Though  in  a  trance  of  weariness,  carrying 
parties  brought  the  food  and  other  supplies  three 
miles  through  the  zone  of  shell-fire  to  the  front. 

A  willing  horse  was  still  to  be  driven  for  another 
day.  The  79th  was  to  be  sent  against  the  slopes 
of  the  whale-back.  Morning  revealed  the  enemy's 
artillery  in  still  greater  force;  and  there  was  mock- 
ery for  the  men  as  they  breasted  it  in  the  sight  of 
a  German  observation  balloon,  lazily  floating  above 


222  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  whale-back  and  directing  the  guns  in  firing  on 
any  parties  who  might  have  found  ravines  or  slopes 
out  of  sight  of  observers  from  the  heights.  All  day 
the  left  strove  for  gains  in  fitful  attacks,  and  gained 
some  three  hundred  yards.  The  right,  in  a  deter- 
mination that  shell-fire  could  not  balk,  reached  the 
edge  of  the  Ogons  Wood.  That  was  something; 
courage's  final  defiance  in  its  exhaustion,  before  the 
thin  line,  which  had  looked  into  the  recesses  where 
the  hidden  machine-guns  opened  upon  them,  with- 
drew to  their  former  position.  The  79th  was  "  ex- 
pended," to  use  the  military  phrase;  and  the  mean- 
ing of  that  was  in  the  hollow  eyes  of  pasty  faces  and 
in  dragging  footsteps.  On  the  30th  its  part  was 
that  of  the  other  divisions  from  the  Meuse  to  the 
Forest,  hugging  the  pits  it  had  dug  under  shell-fire. 
In  the  afternoon  it  was  relieved  by  the  veteran  3rd 
Division. 

Having  brought  the  account  of  the  battle  down 
to  the  standstill  which  closed  the  first  stage,  we  may 
now  turn  our  attention  to  the  American  divisions 
which  were  engaged  with  Allied  armies  in  other 
decisive  attacks  of  this  crucial  period. 


XIII 

OVER  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE 

New  York  and  the  South  on  the  British  front — Up  the  Somme 
valley  in  the  wake  of  the  Australians — The  Saint-Quentin 
Canal  tunnel — Another  ambitious  plan — The  simplicity  of 
success  in  the  attack  of  the  30th  Division — The  Pickett's 
charge  of  the  27th — A  melee  on  the  open  slopes — In  which 
the  Australians  take  a  hand — The  German  hinge  at  Bony 
holds — Australia  carries  on — The  western  front  in  movement 
— The  British  again  in  Le  Cateau — Our  part  in  the  advance 
to  Valenciennes. 

The  Scotch  thrift  of  Sir  Douglas  Haig,  in  face  of 
the  demand  for  our  divisions  in  our  own  sector  and 
at  other  points  along  the  line,  had  been  able  to 
retain  two  of  the  ten  divisions  which  had  been 
trained  in  the  British  sector:  the  27th,  or  "  Orions," 
National  Guard  of  New  York  under  command  of 
Major-General  John  F.  O'Ryan;  and  the  30th,  or 
"  Old  Hickory,"  National  Guard  of  the  Southern 
mountain  states,  under  command  of  Major-General 
Edward  M.  Lewis.  These  two,  forming  our  Sec- 
ond Corps  under  Major-General  George  W.  Read, 
were  to  have  a  spectacular  part  in  the  attack  of 
September  29th  against  the  Hindenburg  line  on 
the  thirty-mile   front  between   Cambrai   and  Saint- 

223 


224  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Quentin,  which  was  to  be  the  next  of  the  thrusts 
in  the  development  of  the  general  offensive  move- 
ment which  decided  the  war. 

Second  Corps  Headquarters  had  been  from  the 
time  of  its  organization  in  the  British  area.  Neither 
division  had  served  anywhere  else  than  with  the 
British.  They  had  been  isolated  from  the  associa- 
tion of  the  American  army  in  a  world  of  their  own 
within  the  British  world.  It  was  well  that  they 
should  be  there;  that  if  we  were  to  have  divisions 
detached  from  our  army  some  should  be  contribut- 
ing their  style  of  English  to  that  spoken  by  English, 
Scotch,  and  Irish,  by  Canadians,  Australians,  New 
Zealanders,  and  South  Africans. 

On  August  30th-September  ist  the  two  fought 
side  by  side  for  the  first  time  as  divisions  in  the 
Ypres  salient  offensive.  They  advanced  for  the 
depth  of  a  mile,  the  27th  until  its  outposts  were  on 
the  famous  Kemmel  Hill  which  the  German  attacks 
had  won  in  the  preceding  April,  and  the  30th  taking 
the  village  of  Voormezeele.  They  were  now  with- 
drawn and  sent  into  training  to  digest  the  les- 
sons of  their  first  battle  and  to  learn  in  practice 
maneuvers  how  to  cooperate  with  tanks.  After 
that  post-graduate  course  they  might  be  considered 
"shock"  divisions,  having  the  freshness  of  new 
troops  plus  an  instructive  experience.  When  they 
received  their  next  order  to  move,  they  knew  that 


MAP    NO.    6. 

LINES    BEACHED    BY    GERMAN    AND    ALLIED    OFFENSIVES 

1918. 


OVER  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE     225 

they  were  to  be  used  as  such;  they  were  going  into 
a  "  big  fight." 

Late  in  September  they  started  across  the  old 
Somme  battlefield,  which  the  Germans  had  devas- 
tated in  their  retreat  in  the  late  winter  of  19 17  in 
face  of  the  Anglo-French  offensives.  Here  the  re- 
sults of  war  on  the  largest  integral  area  in  France 
were  seen  at  their  worst  in  a  dismal,  treeless  land- 
scape, pitted  by  the  bursts  of  the  countless  shells 
fired  in  the  Somme  and  Cambrai  battles  and  the 
fighting  in  the  period  between  them,  and  in  the  tidal 
wave  of  the  great  German  offensive  of  March,  19 18, 
which  overflowed  the  desert  of  their  making.  The 
subsoil,  having  been  mixed  with  the  loam  that  once 
nourished  succulent  pasturage  and  rich  fields  of 
grain,  now  responded  to  sun  and  moisture  in  a  sub- 
tropical growth  of  weeds  and  grass  in  a  grizzly 
carpet,  variegated  by  the  gaping  wounds  in  the  earth 
of  crumbling  trench  walls  and  great  mine  craters. 
Deserted  tanks,  and  remnants  of  sheet-iron  dugout 
roofs  and  of  gun-carriages  and  caissons  recalled  as 
the  debris  of  a  dead  world  ghostly  memories  to  all 
British  soldiers,  for  at  one  time  or  another  all  had 
fought  there,  enduring  the  powers  of  destruction 
that  made  the  wreckage. 

Troops  marching  in  this  area,  where  man  had  at 
such  labor  and  cost  imitated  the  forces  of  earth- 
quakes, volcanoes,  and  of  chaos,  found  few  billets. 


226  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

The  villages  were  mostly  level  with  the  roads. 
Temporary  buildings,  with  corrugated  iron  roofs 
and  tar-paper  walls,  which  would  be  called  "  shacks," 
Iiad  risen  as  the  landmarks  of  pioneer  hospitality. 
The  two  divisions  marching  toward  the  sound 
of  guns  through  the  silence  where  there  was 
neither  woman  nor  child  living  could  people  it 
with  what  reflections  they  chose  on  their  way  to 
battle. 

They  were  attached  to  the  Australian  Corps, 
which  was  company  to  their  taste.  There  were  no 
better  soldiers  than  the  "Aussies."  Our  men  liked 
them  not  only  for  this  but  for  other  qualities  which 
have  a  man-to-man  appeal  when  men  from  the  ends 
of  the  earth  meet.  In  the  coming  attack  we  were 
to  have  more  intimate  reasons  for  liking  them: 
the  reasons  born  of  the  gratitude  which  one 
brave  man  owes  to  another  who  does  not  hesitate 
at  hell's  door  to  come  to  his  aid  when  he  is  hard 
pressed. 

Beginning  with  the  Anglo-French  offensive  on 
August  8th,  the  five  divisions  of  the  Australians  in 
their  "  leap-frogging  "  advance — and  they  were  very 
expert  at  "leap-frogging" — had  not  been  out  of 
line  as  a  Corps  until  they  had  fought  their  way  clear 
across  the  devastated  region  from  the  high-water 
mark  of  the  German  tidal  wave  of  March  to  the 
point  from  which  it  had  started.     In  the  free  stride 


OVER  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE    227 

which  they  had  brought  overseas  from  their  island 
continent  thousands  of  miles  away,  now  guided  by  a 
veteran's  wisdom  and  cunning,  they  had  won  back 
all  they  had  fought  for  on  these  Somme  fields  with 
an  enemy  whose  measure  they  had  always  taken — 
an  enemy  who  they  knew  now  could  never  fight  on 
the  offensive  again.  They  had  suffered  for  four 
years  the  fatigue,  the  shell-fire,  the  machine-gun  fire, 
the  gas,  which  our  army  was  to  know  for  a  brief 
period  of  intensity.  Long  service  and  army 
discipline,  accepted  as  a  means  to  an  end,  had 
no  more  influence  in  making  them  militaristic 
than  a  course  in  boxing  changes  the  anatomy 
of  the  kangaroo.  They  were  ever  the  Austra- 
lians. 

Though  the  British  had  regained  what  they  had 
lost  in  the  spring,  they  were  only  back  before  the 
line  to  which  Hindenburg  had  given  his  name,  after 
he  came  with  his  Ludendorff  from  their  victories  in 
the  east  to  prove  that  the  western  front  was  not 
necessarily  the  grave  of  German  military  reputa- 
tions. German  staff  experts  had  chosen  the  ground 
which  they  had  fortified  at  leisure  behind  their  old 
Bapaume  defenses  during  the  winter  of  1916-1917. 
German  industry  was  then  at  its  height,  and  German 
material  was  ample  to  carry  out  the  plans  for  that 
elaborate  system  which  was  advertised  by  German 
propaganda   as  impregnable.     In  those  days  when 


228  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

all  offensives  in  the  west  had  failed,  many  military 
experts  were  inclined  to  accept  this  view. 

The  portion  of  the  Hindenburg  line  which  the 
27th  and  30th  Divisions  were  to  attack  had  a  dis- 
tinctive character  which  might  well  relate  its  con- 
quest to  an  action  by  such  an  integral  force  as  our 
Second  Corps,  attached  to  another  army.  For  six 
thousand  yards  the  Saint-Quentin  Canal,  opened  in 
Napoleon's  time  and  used  until  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  runs  in  practically  a  straight  line  north  and 
south  under  a  ridge,  whose  crest,  from  the  piling 
of  the  spoils  of  excavation,  is  almost  as  regular  as 
an  enormous  parapet.  The  open  canal  being  un- 
fordable,  this  section,  obviously  inviting  attack,  was 
given  particular  attention  in  preparing  the  artificial 
defenses  which  the  ground  and  the  tunnel  itself 
favored.  The  thickness  of  the  earth  over  the  stone 
arch  was  such  that  at  no  point  had  the  largest 
caliber  shell  the  slightest  chance  of  successful  pene- 
tration. In  the  tunnel,  lighted  by  electricity,  the 
number  of  reserves  which  could  be  accommodated 
was  regulated  by  the  extent  of  the  wooden  platforms 
laid  across  from  wall  to  wall.  It  was  said  that 
there  was  room  enough  provided  for  a  full  division 
of  infantry,  which,  while  being  entertained  by  mov- 
ing pictures  to  while  away  idle  hours,  would  be  per- 
fectly secure  from  any  bombardment  until  such 
time  as  their  services  were  required,  when  they  had 


OVER  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE    229 

prompt  egress  to  their  places  assigned  for  a  crisis 
through  the  openings  to  the  reverse  slope  of 
the  higher  irregular  crest  in  front.  It  was  a 
most  comfortable  and  adaptable  arrangement, 
for  which  the  French  a  century  ago  had  done  the 
spading. 

On  the  crest  in  front  of  the  tunnel,  of  course,  none 
of  the  provisions  in  dugouts,  traverses,  strong  points, 
and  barbed  wire  of  a  thoroughgoing  trench  system 
was  lacking.  In  front  of  this  crest  over  which  the 
main  Hindenburg  line  ran,  at  a  distance  of  a  thou- 
sand yards,  was  another  ridge,  which  formed  the 
first  or  outpost  line.  Any  troops  who  took  this  for- 
ward line  must  move  down  an  apron  in  full  view  of 
the  trenches  of  the  main  system,  in  range  of  its 
machine-guns  and  rifles,  and  under  its  observation 
for  the  direction  of  artillery  fire,  which  of  course 
had  this  apron  accurately  plotted.  Between  the 
two  ridges,  utilizing  the  ravines,  sunken  roads,  and 
irregularities  of  ground,  the  Germans  had  deep 
communication  trenches,  which,  with  the  passages 
out  of  the  tunnel,  further  connected  up  the  system 
in  facilities  for  the  swift  utilization  of  their  troops 
in  making  the  most  of  all  the  details  of  natural  and 
artificial  advantage  of  a  position  which  had  on  its 
flanks  the  unfordable  canal.  But  the  defenses  had 
not  been  well  kept  up,  partly  as  a  result  of  the 
deterioration  of  German  industry  in  digging,   and 


230  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

more  largely  because  of  Ludendorff's  commitment 
to  mobile  warfare  by  his  March  offensive. 

I  recollect  that  the  first  news  we  had  at  Army 
Headquarters  in  the  Meuse-Argonne  of  the  prog- 
ress of  the  Second  Corps  said  that  our  troops  and 
the  Australians  had  surrounded  a  division  of  Ger- 
mans. In  view  of  what  happened,  this  report  now 
has  a  tragic  mockery.  The  plan  of  the  attack  was 
made  by  the  Australian  Corps.  The  30th  Division 
was  to  be  on  the  right;  it  went  into  position  on  the 
forward  ridge,  which  in  its  sector  was  not  as  ex- 
posed as  in  that  of  the  27th.  When  the  New 
Yorkers  went  into  position,  they  faced  the  unpleas- 
ant fact  that  the  British  whom  they  relieved  had 
not  advanced  beyond  their  own  old  outpost  line. 
This  meant  that  they  must  make  a  preliminary 
attack  on  September  27th  in  order  to  gain  their 
assigned  jumping-off  place  for  the  main  attack  on 
the  29th.  Their  daylight  charge  went  home  in  gal- 
lant fashion,  but,  exposed,  when  they  reached  the 
crest,  to  machine-gun  fire  and  to  the  blasts  of  artil- 
lery fire  from  behind  the  tunnel,  they  fought  all  day 
on  the  Knoll  and  among  the  ruins  of  the  buildings 
of  Gillemont  and  Quennemont  farms.  In  and  out 
of  trenches,  "  mopping  up  "  machine-gun  nests  only 
to  have  others  reappear  from  sunken  roads  and 
subterranean  passages  which  were  said  to  lead  back 
to  the  canal  tunnel  itself,  they  paid  heavy  casualties 


OVER  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE    231 

for  a  persistence  which  left  them  that  night  and  the 
next  day  hugging  the  slopes  with  the  crest  still  un- 
mastered. 

It  was  not  on  the  cards  that  the  main  attack, 
which  was  only  one  of  a  sequence  in  the  general 
offensive  movement,  should  be  delayed  on  this  ac- 
count. What  was  to  have  been  taken  in  a  small  bite 
must  now  be  taken  in  a  big  bite.  The  first  ridge 
would  be  rolled  under  in  the  mighty  wave  which 
was  then  to  sweep  down  the  apron  and  through 
the  barbed  wire  and  trenches  up  the  slopes 
and  over  the  crest  of  the  main  ridge  and  of  the 
tunnel  and  on  into  the  open  country  beyond.  The 
fighting  vigor  of  our  Second  Corps,  nursed  in  train- 
ing for  such  a  purpose,  was  to  be  expended  in  one 
morning's  tremendous  effort;  and  at  noon  the  3rd 
and  5th  Australian  Divisions  were  to  pass  through 
our  two  divisions  and  to  continue  the  advance  with 
all  possible  speed  on  the  heels  of  the  broken  enemy. 
For  the  American  was  not  the  only  ambitious  staff 
when  it  took  to  marking  objectives  on  a  map.  Most 
ambitious  of  all  was  Marshal  Foch.  Our  two  divi- 
sions had  all  the  "  Don  Acks,"  or  divisional  artil- 
lery, of  the  Australians,  a  total,  with  the  Corps 
artillery,  of  438  guns,  or  one  for  every  forty  feet 
of  their  front,  to  make  their  shields;  and  beside  an 
array  of  British  tanks  the  only  American  heavy  tank 
unit  in  France.     With  the  American  divisions'  artil- 


232  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

lery  brigades,  which  had  never  seen  the  British 
front,  supporting  other  divisions  in  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  offensive,  who  shall  say  that  there  was  not 
cooperation  among  the  Allies? 

The  attack  of  the  30th  Division  on  the  right  of 
the  Corps  line  against  the  Hindenburg  position,  on 
the  morning  of  September  29th,  was  a  complete  suc- 
cess— a  clean  drive  through  for  two  miles  and  a 
half  to  its  objectives.  If  the  division's  flank  was 
not  exposed  as  the  27th's  was,  if  it  had  relatively 
better  ground  to  traverse,  without  the  handicap  of 
having  to  take  its  jumping-off  place  before  it  began 
its  real  advance,  this  in  no  wise  detracts  from  the 
honor  that  these  men  of  the  Southern  mountains, 
ninety-five  per  cent  of  whom  were  of  Anglo-Saxon 
origin,  did  their  forebears  in  fighting  as  a  part  of 
the  British  army.  They  won  more  Congressional 
Medals  of  Honor,  the  highest  tribute  our  nation 
can  pay  any  officer  or  man  for  gallantry  in  the  field, 
than  any  other  division.  All  that  they  did  was  in 
character  with  the  best  traditions  of  their  grand- 
fathers who  had  fought  under  Lee  and  Stonewall 
Jackson.  They  had  named  their  division  "  Old 
Hickory  "  in  honor  of  another  Jackson  who  was  a 
Southern  hero;  and  hickory  is  hard,  tough,  and 
springy  wood.  Called  "  poor  whites  "  by  the  heed- 
less, they  were  rich  in  the  qualities  that  count  in 
battle.     There  were  companies  of  them  which  were 


OVER  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE    233 

sixty  per  cent  illiterate  when  they  came  to  camp, 
which  calls  for  thought  on  the  part  of  the  traveler 
in  the  "  richest  country  in  the  world '  who  sees 
their  faces  at  railroad  stations  or  in  their  simple 
houses  in  the  mountains. 

Character  and  education,  as  we  are  not  too  often 
reminded,  are  not  the  same;  and  these  men  have 
character,  which  is  sound  in  the  warp  and  the  woof, 
though  it  lacks  frills  and  misses  the  motion  pictures 
'round  the  corner  from  the  soda  fountain.  They 
were  capable  of  education,  too,  not  only  in  reading, 
writing,  and  arithmetic  which  they  were  taught  in 
the  schools  established  for  them,  but  in  military 
technique.  What  they  learned  they  learned  well. 
They  did  not  think  that  any  substitute  "  would  do 
just  as  well  "  when  it  would  not.  If  they  were  told 
to  put  out  panels  for  the  planes,  they  put  them  out, 
and  in  the  way  that  they  were  told.  Their  disci- 
pline was  in  the  devotion  of  the  kind  which  kept  the 
poorly  fed,  equipped,  and  clothed  Southern  armies 
resisting  Northern  power  for  four  years,  and  the 
officers  who  led  them  were  of  a  democracy  which 
has  its  test  in  more  than  mere  platitudes. 

They  believed  in  their  officers,  but  maintained 
their  attitude  of  self-respect,  that  individualism  de- 
veloped from  their  surroundings,  which  separated 
them  by  as  wide  a  gulf  from  regiments  drawn  from 
the  swarming  streets  of  a  great  city  as  could  well 


234  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

exist  in  a  country  speaking  a  common  tongue.  With 
their  drawling  voices  and  romantic  views,  and  their 
lean  figures  and  clear  eyes,  it  seemed  to  me  that  they 
gave  a  certain  atmosphere  of  simple  knightliness 
even  to  the  processes  of  modern  war.  Their  con- 
scientious attention  to  all  the  details  of  instructions 
which  taken  together  make  the  whole  of  battle  effi- 
ciency, their  accuracy  of  thought  as  accurate  as  their 
shooting,  the  confident  hunter's  zest  with  which  they 
went  straight  at  their  foe,  were  contributing  factors 
of  more  importance  than  any  good  fortune  in  their 
swift  and  positively  brilliant  advance  through  the 
defenses  of  one  of  the  strongest  positions  on  the 
western  front.  With  surprisingly  small  losses,  no 
day's  work  of  any  division  of  the  American  army 
deserves  more  praise  than  the  Hickory's,  both  be- 
cause of  their  own  character  and  of  that  of  their 
task.  They  did  not  think  that  they  had  done 
much.  Their  admiration  was  all  for  the  British 
veterans  on  their  right  who  had  adroitly  managed 
a  crossing  of  the  canal  on  rafts  and  had  kept  pace 
with  their  own  movement. 

The  story  of  the  27th  on  the  left,  for  the  very  rea- 
son that  it  was  not  the  kind  of  success  which  moves 
the  pencilings  on  schedule  time  on  the  map  in  keep- 
ing with  staff  plans,  was  to  exhibit  those  qualities 
of  the  courage  of  individuals  and  groups  in  distress 
against  odds,    of  which   w*   stand   in  awe   as   the 


OVER  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE     235 

supreme  tribute  to  men  as  men  in  battle.  The  re- 
ports showed  that  all  was  going  well  at  first.  Under 
cover  of  foggy  mist,  which  was  most  friendly  in 
hiding  the  advance  down  the  slope  of  both  divisions, 
the  27th  started  off  in  the  same  admirable  fashion 
as  the  30th,  following  close  behind  its  barrage.  By 
noon  not  only  was  the  30th  reported  in  Nauroy, 
beyond  the  canal,  but  troops  of  the  27th  had  been 
seen  in  Gouy  and  Le  Catelet,  practically  one  town, 
on  the  far  side  of  the  main  ridge.  Aviators  later 
saw  detachments  of  the  Orions  moving  forward  and 
Germans  who  were  not  convoys  of  prisoners  moving 
in  the  opposite  direction — a  most  suggestive  spec- 
tacle. Divisional  communications  had  been  cut. 
The  division  staff  could  only  wait  on  results,  not 
knowing  what  orders  to  give.  Such  command  as 
remained  was  with  the  leaders  of  the  elements,  their 
liaison  broken,  which  were  fighting  their  hearts  out. 
There  could  be  no  more  doubt  of  the  27th's  capa- 
bility than  of  the  fearful  situation  in  which  it  was 
placed.  The  New  York  National  Guard  had  been 
known  as  among  the  best  state  troops,  having  re- 
ceived liberal  support,  while  its  commander  was  a 
permanent  officer  on  the  state's  pay-roll,  who  gave 
all  his  time  to  the  organization.  On  the  Mexican 
border  it  had  won  high  praise.  Later,  when  the 
New  Yorkers  were  given  an  integral  division  in  our 
army  in  the  war  with  Germany,  both  in  their  train- 


236  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

ing  at  home  and  in  France  and  then  in  their  fighting 
in  the  Ypres  salient,  they  enhanced  their  reputation. 
When  I  went  over  the  field  of  the  action  of  the 
29th,  I  was  struck  with  amazement  at  the  results 
expected  of  them,  and  with  awe  as  I  visualized  their 
effort,  which  like  Pickett's  charge  owes  its  place  in 
history  not  to  the  wisdom  of  generals  but  to  valor — 
and  that  the  valor  of  intelligence.  While  the  British 
were  to  advance  on  the  right  of  the  30th,  they  were 
not  to  succeed  in  advancing  on  the  left  of  the  27th, 
where  the  canal,  emerging  from  the  tunnel's  north- 
ern end,  bends  to  the  west,  against  the  direction  of 
the  attack,  across  the  Macquincourt  valley,  whose 
wall  opposite  the  tunnel  entrance  has  ravines  and 
hillocks  for  cover.  This  area,  covered  with  big 
shell-craters,  sometimes  half-filled  in  by  other  shell- 
bursts,  included  sections  of  communication  trenches, 
machine-gun  emplacements,  dugouts,  snarls  of  barbed 
wire,  all  in  a  chaotic  disorder  which  had  no  system 
to  the  casual  glance,  except  that  every  square  yard 
of  it  was  suited  to  desperate  resistance  by  skilful  sol- 
diers.  The  27th's  left  was  to  sweep  across  this  val- 
ley over  the  ridge,  and  then  throw  out  forces  of 
exploitation  for  protection  of  its  flank  in  face  of  the 
well-intrenched  unfordable  canal  and  the  high 
ground  behind  it;  after  the  canal  tunnel  had  been 
taken,  other  forces  were  to  swing  north,  while  the 
British  Third  Corps,  which  had  not  been  sent  in  a 


OVER  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE     237 

frontal  attack  against  the  open  canal  positions — over 
ground  infinitely  more  difficult  than  at  the  other  end 
of  the  tunnel, — was,  with  the  aid  of  this  support, 
to  "  join  up."  It  could  hardly  be  said  of  that  plan, 
as  of  many  others  for  swinging  open  the  double 
doors  against  trench  systems,  that  it  even  looked 
well  on  paper;  but  it  was  the  plan  adopted  after 
thorough  consideration  by  practical  soldiers. 

The  Germans,  of  course,  had  information  that  an 
offensive  was  in  preparation  on  this  front,  and  that 
it  would  include  the  ridge  over  the  canal  tunnel. 
With  their  reserves  in  the  tunnel  ready,  they  would 
wait  on  its  development  before  sending  them  to  the 
point  where  they  would  do  the  most  service. 
Anticipating  their  prevision,  our  command  gave 
instructions  that  as  we  reached  the  openings  in  the 
tunnel  they  were  to  be  guarded,  thus  preventing  the 
egress  of  the  Germans  except  as  prisoners  from 
their  great  dugout,  in  the  same  manner  that  trench 
dugouts  were  breached  in  an  attack.  That  this 
could  not  be  done  in  face  of  the  numbers  of  the 
enemy  emerging  after  our  first  wave  had  passed  is 
not  a  criticism  of  the  men  who  fought  all  day  to 
do  it. 

The  "  get  there  "  spirit  which  animated  all  our 
divisions  was  supreme  in  the  men  of  the  27th.  As 
they  descended  the  slope,  after  sweeping  over  the 
forward  ridge,  their  figures  distinct  as  the  smoke- 


238  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

screen  and  the  fog  lifted,  the  German  artillery  sent 
a  curtain  of  shell-fire,  which  kept  pace  with  their 
progress,  through  the  curtain  protecting  them. 
Machine-guns  from  the  high  ground  across  the  open 
canal  were  turned  on  their  flank  with  increasing  fire; 
and  their  own  tanks,  on  which  they  relied  so  largely 
for  protection,  were  to  suffer  severe  casualties  from 
accurate  enemy  defense.  Each  infantry  unit  had  no 
thought  except  to  keep  on  going.  Every  survivor 
had  his  face  set  toward  the  goal.  The  forces  as- 
signed to  secure  the  openings  in  the  tunnel  and  to 
"  mop  up,"  straggling  over  the  uneven  ground  and 
raked  by  machine-gun  fire,  could  not  advance  against 
the  stubborn  resistance  developed  by  the  enemy 
emerging  from  his  hiding-places  after  our  barrage 
had  lifted.  On  the  right  the  men  of  the  27th,  striv- 
ing to  keep  up  with  the  30th,  drove  into  the  main 
trench  system  about  the  ruined  village  of  Bony,  on 
the  crest  in  front  of  the  tunnel,  and  for  all  the 
accumulated  effort  of  the  enemy  to  throw  them  back 
from  this  vital  hinge  of  his  resistance,  maintained 
their  footing  in  a  struggle  that  lasted  all  day.  Pass- 
ing over  the  northern  end  of  the  ridge,  on  the  left, 
a  battalion  of  the  first  wave,  regardless  of  fire, 
reached  the  Le  Catelet-Gouy  villages,  their  final  ob- 
jective. It  was  their  movement  that  the  aeroplane 
observers  had  seen  going  in  the  opposite  direction 
from  German  reserves  coming  into   action.     That 


OVER  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE    239 

battalion  had  kept  faith  with  the  plan  which  re- 
quired swift  action  to  make  the  most  of  the  initiative 
gained,  before  the  enemy  could  mobilize  for  defense 
after  the  shock  of  the  attack. 

Naturally  it  had  soon  been  apparent  to  the  Ger- 
man command  that  there  was  no  advance  by  the 
British  Third  Corps  on  the  27th' s  left  up  to  the 
canal.  Obviously  this  was  the  opening  for  reserves 
to  frustrate  the  offensive.  The  German  soldiers 
gradually  losing  morale  as  a  whole  were  now  to 
show  their  old  form  in  one  of  those  flashes  of 
desperate  counter-attack  and  resistance  which  was 
worthy  of  their  regulation  at  its  fiercest.  It  had 
always  been  characteristic  of  them  that  they  fought 
best  when  they  were  winning;  when  the  advantage 
was  theirs.  These  veterans  swarming  out  of  the 
openings  of  the  tunnel  and  up  the  Macquincourt 
valley  on  our  exposed  flank  had  their  blood  up. 
This  was  their  Hindenburg  line.  They  had  been 
told  that  it  was  unassailable,  and  that  any  attack 
against  it  would  break  into  confusion  which  would 
be  their  prey,  an  opportunity  which  was  compensa- 
tion for  their  retreats  of  the  last  month,  arousing 
afresh  their  professional  zeal  in  applying,  in  a  field 
of  a  kind  with  which  they  were  as  familiar  as  prairie 
dogs  with  their  warrens,  all  their  skill  in  tactics  of 
cunning  infiltration  under  the  support  of  their 
machine-guns.     They  were  as  old  hounds  who  had 


24o  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

been  having  hard  hunting  of  late  with  little  success, 
and  whose  appetites  were  whetted  by  the  sight  of  a 
quarry. 

The  report  that  we  had  an  enemy  division  sur- 
rounded was  probably  founded  on  the  observation 
of  the  counter-attacking  parties  of  Germans  ob- 
served between  the  battalion  in  Gouy  and  our  main 
force.  Wholly  enveloped,  the  groups  of  this  gal- 
lant unit — a  Pickett's  charge  which  had  kept  going 
until  the  remnants  were  swallowed  up  in  the  enemy's 
forces — could  only  surrender,  when  they  saw  gray 
uniforms  on  all  sides,  or,  dodging  from  cover  to 
cover,  try  to  win  their  way  back  to  their  comrades. 
Other  units,  emerging  into  zones  swept  by  unseen 
fire,  sought  any  protection  they  could  find.  Others 
still  tried  to  advance.  "  Mopping  up  "  parties  had 
to  resist  being  "  mopped  up  "  themselves.  The  bat- 
tle became  a  melee  in  front  of  the  Hindenburg  line;  a 
free-for-all,  in  and  out  of  burrows  and  craters;  their 
general  must  trust  his  men  to  fight  in  the  spirit  in 
which  he  had  trained  them;  and  thus  they  did  fight. 
Plunging  machine-gun  fire  and  hand-grenades  sought 
out  the  wounded  in  folds  of  the  ground  and  pits, 
while  bullets  whistled  overhead.  No  platoon  knew 
to  a  certainty  what  its  neighbor  was  doing.  Some 
bold  man  sprang  out  of  shell-craters  to  seek  close 
quarters  or  to  try  to  reach  a  machine-gun,  only  to 
fall  back  dead  into  his  companion's  arms.     Groups 


OVER  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE    241 

found  that  they  were  being  slowly  exterminated  by 
scattering  bullets,  while  any  movement  in  any  direc- 
tion meant  instant  extermination.  Always  the  spits 
of  dust  showed  bullets  coming  in  two  directions — 
as  ridge  and  valley  wall  looked  down  on  them.  The 
wonder  is  that  they  did  not  break  into  a  panic.  But 
that  was  not  in  the  character  of  such  men.  On  the 
contrary,  they  continued  their  efforts  to  advance. 
How  many  deeds  of  heroism,  unseen  by  any  ob- 
server, deserved  Medals  of  Honor  will  never  be 
known. 

If  ever  the  determined  faces  of  sturdy  men  com- 
ing up  in  reserve  were  welcome,  they  were  those  of 
the  Australians,  as  they  appeared  for  their  part  of 
the  program — which  was  to  "  leap-frog  "  our  troops 
and  carry  on  the  advance :  to  find  that  they  had  hot 
work  in  prospect  from  the  moment  they  passed  the 
tape  we  had  strung  for  our  jumping-off  line.  Our 
battalion  in  Le  Catelet  having  been  effectively  cut 
off,  the  battalion  which  had  kept  its  footing  in  the 
Hindenburg  line  at  Bony  stayed  on,  mingled  with 
the  oncoming  Australians,  for  that  night  and  an- 
other day  of  fighting.  The  Australians  who  had 
passed  through  the  30th  Division,  on  its  objective 
at  Nauroy,  for  a  farther  advance  to  the  next  village 
of  Joncourt,  were  obliged  to  relinquish  their  gains 
in  order  to  bend  back  their  line  diagonally  to  join 
up  with  the  mixed  Australians  and  New  Yorkers  at 


242  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Bony.     The   German  hinge   at  that  point  was  not 
to  be  broken  until  the  next  day;  north  of  Bony  the 
27th's  line  that  night  slanted  back,  in  order  to  face 
as  far  as  possible  the  murderous  fire  on  its  exposed 
flank,  to  the  outpost  line  from  which  they  had  been 
unable  to  advance.     The   27th  had  suffered  4,000 
casualties  since  September  27th.     Now,  as  fast  as 
units  could  be  gathered  and  re-formed,  it  was  with- 
drawn for  reorganization,  as  was  the  30th,  leaving 
the  Australians  to  finish  the  task.    The  fact  that  our 
Meuse-Argonne    offensive    had    slowed    down,    and 
that   at   other  points  the   progress   of  the   general 
Allied  movement  was   being  stayed,  may   account, 
judging  from  German  reports  I  have  read,  for  a 
return   of  German   staff   confidence   which  was  im- 
parted to   the   German   veterans,   who,    after   their 
brilliant  and  savage  use  of  their  amazing  opportuni- 
ties against  the  27th,  kept  up  their  resistance  point 
by  point  for  four  days  before  the  Australians  had 
gained  the  complete  objective  set  for  the  27th  on 
September  29th.     It  is  never  a  pleasant  task  for 
any  body  of   troops   to   have   to   do   the   work   as- 
signed   to    another;    but   the    Australian    staff    had 
made  the  plan,   and  the   "  Aussies  "   accepted  the 
legacy  we  had  left  with  a  spirit  in  keeping  with  their 
comradeship   for  the  Americans.     From   our  staff 
and  our  army,   from  the  state  of  New  York  and 
our  country,  as  well  as  from  the  men  of  the  27th, 


OVER  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE    243 

ever  willing  to  give  it  with  full  hearts,  they  deserve 
the  tribute  due  to  their  bravery  and  fellow- 
ship. 

I  may  add  that  this  was  the  Australians'  last 
action.  After  thirteen  months  of  continuous  fight- 
ing they  were  sent  into  winter  quarters.  The 
men  who  had  been  out  from  home  since  19 14 — 
and  the  Americans  who  were  homesick  after  three 
months  in  France  can  imagine  what  this  meant — 
were  just  starting  on  their  first  home  leave  when 
the  armistice  came.  May  the  recollection  of  how 
they  fought  at  our  side  in  a  war  to  end  war  keep 
the  friendship  of  the  two  peoples  secure. 

On  the  night  of  October  5th  the  30th  Division, 
which  had  suffered  far  less  than  the  27th,  relieved 
the  Australians.  The  job  was  finished;  on  this 
part  as  on  the  rest  of  the  British  front,  the  once 
glorious  Hindenburg  line  was  left  behind,  sud- 
denly become  a  somewhat  frowsy  irrelevance  of 
deserted  trenches,  dugouts,  shell-craters,  and  tangles 
of  barbed  wire.  With  its  passing  one  knew  that, 
for  the  northern  half  of  the  front,  there  was  no 
question  of  stopping;  careful,  methodical  planning, 
mindful  of  the  necessary  vigorous  thrusts  at  the 
key  positions  of  railway  centers  and  canal  and 
river  defenses,  would  irresistibly  sweep  the  enemy 
back  to  the  Meuse  line,  while  the  slower  movement 
'  down    below " — as    the    French    and    American 


244 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


fronts  seemed  from  the  north — would  question  his 
ability  to  stand  even  there. 

Not  that  there  was  to  be  any  spectacular  rush 
about  the  movement,  though  one  looked  expectantly 
at  the  fitness  of  the  British  cavalry,  which  was  always 
kept  ready;  the  German  staff  could  be  expected  to 
handle  itself  in  this  its  most  serious  emergency. 
The  spectacular  and  amazing  thing  was  the  steady, 
unruffled  forward  movement  of  millions  of  men, 
glacier-like  in  its  assuredness.  The  temper  of  vic- 
tory revealed  itself  in  the  eyes  and  bearing  of  the 
men  who  had  waited  four  years,  and  who  now  saw 
Ypres  disengaged,  Lille  on  the  point  of  recovery, 
Lens,  Cambrai,  Saint-Quentin  restored  to  France. 
Americans  might  feel  out  of  place  in  the  midst  of 
rejoicings,  the  depth  of  which  they  could  not 
measure  because  they  had  not  known  the  suffering 
which  had  gone  before. 

The  Second  Corps  was  now  to  take  part  in  the 
advance  of  one  French  and  three  British  armies 
which,  by  November  ist,  was  to  expand  until  the 
whole  line  from  the  sea  to  the  Argonne  was  in 
motion.  From  north  of  Cambrai  to  south  of  Saint- 
Quentin  the  line  was  to  reach  its  apex  before  Le 
Cateau  in  the  attack  of  October  8th-ioth;  on  the 
14th  the  Franco-Belgian  and  British  attack  north  of 
Lille  was  to  start  bringing  the  line  "up  to  this  level; 
from  the  17th  to  the  25th  the  southern  British  and 


OVER  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE    245 

French  armies  would  again  take  up  the  offensive  to 
the  gates  of  Valenciennes,  while  the  French  armies 
"  around  the  corner "  on  the  right  would  have 
passed  over  the  Saint-Gobain  bastion  and  straight- 
ened out  the  corner. 

The  plan  of  the  advances  in  which  the  Second 
Corps  took  part  was  simple.  The  enemy  had  none 
but  hastily  organized  defenses,  and  if  he  were 
pushed  hard  enough  he  would  go.  So  the  artillery 
was  to  be  moved  as  far  forward  as  possible  to  give 
the  necessary  protection  to  the  infantry;  the  attack 
would  start  all  along  the  thirty-mile  front  for  gen- 
erous objectives,  and  could  be  expected  to  go  fairly 
well  for  two  or  three  days,  when  stubborn  resist- 
ance at  various  points  would  make  it  necessary  to 
halt  the  advance  until  supplies  were  brought  up 
and  the  resistance  overcome  in  another  general 
effort.  The  artillery  declared  that  this  was  getting 
to  be  too  much  of  an  infantry  war,  nothing  counting 
except  keeping  up  with  their  giddy  romp  across 
fields.  The  infantry  might  have  replied  that  they 
were  pushing  on  so  fast  in  order  to  keep  the  Ger- 
mans from  destroying  the  roads  and  light  railways 
which  the  artillery  and  transport  would  be  using:,. 
Not  that  I  wish  to  imply  that  the  infantry  found  it 
a  giddy  romp;  there  were  always  the  machine-guns 
and  the  front-line  artillery  batteries,  and,  especially 
on  the  first  day  of  the  attack,  a  considerable  quan- 


246  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

tity  of  "  h-vic  "  shells,  as  they  were  called  on  the 
British  front,  from  the  large-calibre  guns  which  were 
protecting  the  withdrawal  of  field-guns  and  material. 
There  was  no  question,  however,  of  the  with- 
drawal. When  the  30th  Division,  after  two  days 
of  waiting  on  the  two  miles  of  Corps  front  which 
the  Australians  had  handed  over,  started  forward 
on  October  8th  along  the  south  edge  of  the  Roman 
Road  to  Le  Cateau,  it  was  able  to  cover  three  miles 
by  noon,  taking  the  fair-sized  towns  of  Brancourt 
and  Premont,  and  a  number  of  solid  farmhouses 
and  small  copses,  on  the  way.  Enough  guns  were 
moved  up  over  virtually  undamaged  roads  to  per- 
mit another  start  at  dawn  on  the  9th;  and  the  end 
of  that  day  found  the  Southerners  four  miles  farther 
on  and  in  possession  of  the  important  railway  center 
and  large  town  of  Busigny,  which  the  enemy  had 
relinquished  practically  without  a  struggle.  Another 
mile  was  gained  on  the  10th,  and  the  division  line 
brought  to  the  Selle  river,  which  was  not  much  of 
a  river  in  the  eyes  of  the  Americans,  but  on  which 
the  enemy  had  obviously  intended  to  call  a  halt. 
The  railway  yards  in  front  of  Le  Cateau,  in  the 
sector  of  the  Thirteenth  British  Corps  on  the  left, 
gave  violent  resistance  to  any  further  progress  on 
that  side;  the  rearward  movement  of  enemy  field- 
guns  had  apparently  stopped,  to  judge  from  the 
quantity  of  shell-fire  and  gas  which  now  came  over; 


OVER  THE  HINDENBURG  LINE     247 

and  worried  intelligence  officers  were  doing  their 
best  to  decipher  the  mystery  of  prisoners  from  eleven 
German  divisions  who  had  been  taken  on  the  two- 
mile  front.  Incidentally,  it  should  be  said  that  the 
Southerners  had  gathered  in  1,900  Germans  in 
three  days,  which  was  more  than  their  share  of  the 
total  of  12,000  prisoners  captured  by  the  three 
British  armies. 

One  who  knew  the  dreary  waste  of  the  Somme 
battlefield,  or  indeed  the  level  ruins  of  any  part  of 
the  old  trench  line,  might  well  rub  his  eyes  when  he 
came  into  this  fresh  landscape,  where  the  South- 
erners seemed  as  much  at  home  as  if  they  had  never 
seen  mountains.  One  had  forgotten,  it  seemed  as  if 
one  had  never  known,  that  you  could  have  war  in 
a  country  where  women  and  children  walked  about 
the  streets,  and  lived  in  intact  houses,  and  even  went 
to  shop,  to  school,  and  to  mass.  A  Corps  officer 
who  had  worked  with  Hoover  in  Belgium  found  a 
familiar  task  in  distributing  food  to  the  four  thou- 
sand civilians  in  the  sector. 

Sterner  fighting  was  to  follow  from  October  17th 
for  the  weakened  divisions,  which  had  received  no 
replacements  to  bring  them  up  from  half  strength, 
and  which  could  therefore,  together,  take  over  little 
more  than  a  mile  of  front.  Starting  from  the  Selle 
river  south  of  Le  Cateau,  they  met  a  stubborn  resist- 
ance until  the  stand  made  by  the  enemy  in  that  town> 


248 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


which  had  seen  a  fierce  British  resistance  in  19 14 
in  the  retreat  from  Mons,  was  overcome  by  the 
Thirteenth  British  Corps;  then  our  Southerners  and 
New  Yorkers,  having  advanced  four  miles  in  three 
days,  were  relieved  and  sent  back  to  the  dreary 
Somme  fields  east  of  Amiens.  Had  it  been  neces- 
sary to  fight  a  way  into  Germany,  they  would  prob- 
ably have  been  called  on  again  for  their  manly  share. 
As  it  was,  they  were  the  only  American  troops, 
aside  from  scattered  units,  which  were  not  to  be 
gathered  into  the  fold  of  the  main  American  forces. 
That  this  isolation  did  not  please  them  is  under- 
standable; but  I  suspect  that  it  was  good  for  them. 
There  could  not  be  the  exaggeration  of  their  part  in 
the  final  victory  which  there  might  have  been  if 
they  had  had  American  food  and  had  seen  none  but 
American  activity  about  them.  If  officially  the 
British  made  much  of  them,  they  realized  that  it 
was  not  only  for  what  they  had  done  but  in  honor 
of  the  country  which  had  sent  them  forth  to  fight 
for  the  common  cause. 


XIV 

DISENGAGING  RHEIMS 

The  race-horse  division  in  another  spearhead  action — Regulars 
and  Marines — A  division  that  had  learned  coordination — 
Trying  for  Blanc-Mont — One  attack  that  cost  nothing — An 
exhausted  division  reinforced  by  the  new  Southwestern  divi- 
sion— Which  keeps  up  with  the  Marines — The  36th  learns 
fast — And  pursues  the  enemy  to  the  Aisne. 

Ever  the  demand  from  all  parts  of  the  Allied  line 
was  for  American  troops.  Their  speed  in  attack  had 
become  a  recognized  factor  in  the  plans  of  the 
unified  command,  which  moved  them  about  with  an 
inconsiderate  rapidity  which  was  hard  on  shoe- 
leather  and  most  uncomfortable.  The  very  sight  of 
the  soldiers  of  our  young  army  moving  into  a  sector 
of  their  line  before  an  action  quickened  the  spirits 
of  the  veterans  of  the  old  armies. 

If  Sir  Douglas  Haig  had  two  American  divisions 
for  storming  the  Hindenburg  line,  then  General 
Gouraud,  whose  Fourth  Army  had  broken  the 
trench  line  for  gains  west  of  the  Argonne  Forest,  in 
conjunction  with  our  advance  between  the  Forest 
and  the  Meuse,  must  have  two  divisions  for  the 
next  step  in  the  general  offensive  movement  which 
was  to  disengage   Rheims,   in   a   drive   northward 

249 


250  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

from  Somme-Py  to  the  Aisne.  These  two  included 
the  2nd,  Marines  and  Regulars,  the  race-horse  divi- 
sion, which  had  the  longest  experience  in  France  of 
any  regular  division  except  the  pioneers  of  the  ist. 
Our  sore  need  of  its  veteran  skill  in  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  had  to  yield  to  an  urgent  request,  which 
amounted  to  a  command,  from  higher  authority. 
Naturally,  the  2nd  would  have  preferred  being  with 
our  own  army;  but  wherever  it  was  it  would  fight 
well.  It  was  to  add  to  its  laurels  now  in  the  rolling 
country  of  Champagne,  where  the  deep  strata  of 
chalk  under  the  light  sub-soil  formed  solid  walls 
for  defenses,  accrued  through  four  years  of  digging, 
as  distinct  on  the  background  of  the  landscape  as 
the  white  tape  on  a  tennis  court  or  the  base-lines  on 
a  baseball  diamond.  Soldiers  in  blue  or  khaki,  after 
fighting  in  this  region  in  rainy  weather,  looked  like 
men  who  had  just  come  from  work  in  a  flour- 
mill,  where  they  had  been  wrestling  with  the  splash- 
ing mill-wheel.  It  was  a  custom  to  rub  helmets  with 
the  chalk  of  parapets  for  the  sake  of  invisibility. 

The  action  in  which  the  2nd  was  again,  as  on 
July  1 8th,  to  play  the  part  of  the  spearhead  was  to 
cut  the  Rheims  salient  by  thrusts  on  the  sides,  much 
as  one  would  push  in  the  roofless  walls  of  a  housek 
on  a  man  within,  which  is  much  more  reasonable 
than  trying  to  break  up  through  the  floor  to  get  at 
him.     The  third  German  offensive  of  May  had  all 


DISENGAGING  RHEIMS  251 

but  encircled  Rheims  from  the  west;  had  the  last  and 
unsuccessful  offensive  attained  its  end  of  a  deep  ad- 
vance east  of  the  city,  Rheims  would  have  been  far 
behind  the  enemy's  line.  As  it  was,  heroic  resistance 
had  saved  the  city,  at  the  price  of  leaving  it  for  four 
months  in  a  salient  as  pronounced  and  as  dangerous 
as  the  Ypres  salient,  which  must  be  reversed  and 
then  broken.  The  reversal  which  would  put  the 
enemy  in  turn  into  a  salient  was  started  west  of 
Rheims,  on  September  30th,  by  General  Berthelot's 
Fifth  Army;  in  a  three  days'  advance  his  line,  pivot- 
ing on  the  city,  swung  up  from  an  east-west  direc- 
tion to  a  northwest-southeast  direction,  effectively 
turning  the  salient  inside  out.  The  line  now  ran 
for  some  twenty  miles  southeast  past  the  edge 
of  Rheims,  turned  east  through  Champagne  for 
another  fifteen  miles  to  Auberive,  and  then,  as  a 
result  of  General  Gouraud's  advances  from  Septem- 
ber 26th,  turned  northeast  to  the  northern  end  of 
the  Argonne.  A  simultaneous  attack  by  Berthelot, 
on  the  west  face  of  this  flat  arc  with  a  thirty-mile 
chord,  and  by  Gouraud  on  the  east  face,  would  send 
the  enemy  scurrying  back  to  a  maximum  depth  of 
twenty-five  miles  to  the  line  of  the  Aisne  river,  which 
here  runs  roughly  east  and  west. 

From  just  north  of  Somme-Py,  in  the  center  of 
the  up-slanting  east  face  of  the  salient,  the  2nd 
Division,    attached    with    French    divisions    to    the 


252  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Twenty-first  Corps,  was  to  strike  over  chalk  ridges 
and  through  woods  northwest  toward  Machault. 
The  attack  was  first  set  for  October  2nd,  but  was 
postponed  while  the  division  spent  this  day  in  clean- 
ing German  recalcitrants  out  of  a  portion  of  the 
trench  system  taken  over  from  a  French  division 
which  had  captured  it.  The  Corps  orders  for  the 
attack  were  then  issued  so  late  that  there  was  not 
time  to  have  them  translated  and  written  out,  as  the 
custom  was,  for  the  sake  of  accuracy  which  was  con- 
sidered indispensable  to  the  team-play  of  units;  but 
they  had  to  be  sent  orally  to  our  two  brigades. 

In  the  center  of  the  field  of  attack  was  the  Vipere 
Wood,  which  was  known  to  hold  many  machine-gun 
nests.  By  a  converging  movement  the  Marine 
brigade  was  to  pass  this  wood  on  the  left,  and  the 
Regular  brigade  to  pass  it  on  the  right  in  flank,  and 
form  line  beyond  it, — which  was  not  a  mission  a 
general  would  assign  to  tyros  who  had  not  yet 
learned  to  maintain  the  liaison  of  their  units  in  diffi- 
cult fighting!  In  order  to  go  into  position,  the 
Regular  brigade  had  a  night  march  around  the  rear 
of  the  line.  Happily  the  men  of  the  2nd  Division 
had  had  experience  of  this  sort  of  thing.  They  had 
gone  in  on  the  run  at  Chateau-Thierry,  and  again 
in  the  crucial  drive  at  Soissons  on  July  18th.  It  had 
been  said  that  they  did  things  best  in  a  hurry,  which 
may  have  led  to  their  being  relied  on  as  "  hit-and- 


DISENGAGING  RHEIMS  253 

run  "-experts ;  nevertheless  they  had  an  idea  of 
their  own  that  if  they  might  have  moved  into  line 
and  looked  over  the  ground  a  few  hours  before 
going  into  an  attack,  instead  of  charging  when  they 
were  breathless  from  sprinting,  they  might  have 
done  equally  well  with  slightly  less  nerve  strain. 

As  the  French  guides  who  were  to  meet  the 
Regular  brigade  at  dark  and  show  it  the  way  did 
not  appear,  which  was  a  common  failing  with  guides, 
the  brigade  had  to  grope  about  among  shell-craters 
and  communication  trenches  to  find  its  jumping-off 
place,  which  was  still  partly  occupied  by  the  enemy. 
By  5  A.M.  only  six  companies  were  in  position;  but 
by  5.50,  the  hour  for  attack,  thanks  to  the  owl's 
eyes  and  instinct  of  direction  which  seemed  to  be  a 
part  of  the  equipment  of  the  2nd,  every  company 
was  up  in  order,  ready  for  the  charge.  With  tanks 
assisting  against  its  machine-gun  nests,  they  swept 
past  the  Vipere  Wood.  A  loss  of  twenty  per  cent 
of  their  infantry  did  not  interfere  with  their  reach- 
ing their  two-mile  objective  on  schedule  time  at  8.30. 

The  race-horse  proclivities  of  the  2nd,  having 
been  developed  on  no  level  speedway  but  over  all 
the  hurdles  of  modern  defense  against  all  arms  of 
fire,  were  accentuated  by  the  rivalry  of  the  Regular 
and  Marine  brigades.  The  Marine  was  the  better 
brigade  of  the  two.  All  the  Marines  say  so.  I 
agree  with  them.     The  Regular  brigade  was  also 


254  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  better.  All  the  Regulars  say  so.  I  agree  with 
them.  If  the  Marines  were  up  to  their  objective, 
the  Regulars  must  be;  and  if  the  Regulars  were  up 
the  Marines  must  be,  or  die  in  the  attempt.  No 
ifs,  or  buts,  or  excuses  of  any  kind  except  casualties 
were  ever  accepted  in  the  2nd  for  not  advancing. 
And  you  must  not  lose  life  unskillfully,  or  your 
brigade  might  be  convicted  of  not  being  as  profes- 
sional as  the  other, — and  that  would  be  a  disgrace. 
The  2nd  had  been  fortunate  in  its  commanders. 
Major-General  Harbord,  a  Regular,  had  leaned 
backward  toward  the  Marines;  and  Major-General 
Lejeune,  a  Marine  officer,  who  was  now  in  command, 
leaned  backward  toward  the  Regulars.  They  were 
wise  men,  occupied  with  making  the  2nd  the  "  best " 
division  in  the  army. 

Despite  the  trouble  it  met  on  the  way  from  cross- 
fire and  machine-gun  nests  in  the  Somme-Py  Wood, 
the  Marine  brigade  was  also  up  on  schedule  time  at 
8.30.  The  two  brigades  had  not  been  thinking 
much  of  their  flanks;  they  were  concerned  in  racing 
each  other.  While  either  considered  the  other  in- 
capable of  its  own  stride,  neither  thought  that  any 
brigade  in  the  world  except  itself  could  keep  pace* 
with  the  other.  They  were  not  surprised  to  find 
that  the  French  were  not  up  on  their  flanks;  and  the 
fact  that  the  French  were  not,  interfered  with  the 
success   of  another   advance   planned   for    1 1    A.M., 


DISENGAGING  RHEIMS  255 

unless  the  2nd  were  to  drive  into  a  salient  which 
increasing  machine-gun  fire  indicated  as  an  unpro- 
fessional effort, — suicide  not  being  professional  with 
the  2nd  unless  one  brigade  should  make  it  a  custom 
which  the  other  would  have  to  follow. 

Though  the  French  on  the  right  might  hold  up 
their  end  in  a  further  attack  before  noon,  there  was 
no  chance  that  the  French  on  the  left  could:  with 
the  Marine  front  line  more  than  two  miles  in  ad- 
vance, the  French  were  still  occupied  in  trying  to 
conquer  the  sinuous  warrens  of  the  Essen  trench, 
which  was  acting  an  assassin's  part  in  the  rear  of  the 
Marines.  Indeed,  the  Germans  were  counter- 
attacking, further  intensifying  the  seriousness  of  the 
situation.  The  reserve  regiment  of  Marines  had 
other  work  to  do  than  assisting  the  front-line  regi- 
ment in  a  further  advance.  While  its  men,  in 
helping  the  French  division,  were  breaching  dug- 
outs, using  their  bayonets,  throwing  and  dodging 
bombs  as  they  rushed  around  traverses  and  met 
counter-rushes  in  an  infernal  hand-to-hand  wrestle, 
and  sending  out  chalk-plastered  Germans  in  torn 
uniforms  to  join  the  groups  of  prisoners  and 
wounded  coming  from  the  front,  Marshal  Foch  sent 
a  telegram  of  congratulation  to  the  Corps,  with 
word  to  press  the  advance. 

At  4  P.M.,  when  the  reserve  regiment  of  the 
Marines  had  finished  its  task  in  applying  in  savage 


256  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

hand-to-hand  fighting,  characteristic  of  the  old  days 
before  open  warfare  became  the  rule,  all  its  training 
in  trench  warfare,  an  order  was  given  to  obey  that 
of  the  Marshal;  but  it  hardly  concerned  the  front 
regiment  of  Marines,  which  was  without  the  sup- 
port of  the  reserve  regiment,  while  the  retarded 
French  on  the  flank,  still  fighting  hard  for  their 
gains,  were  well  to  the  rear.  The  reserve  regiment 
of  the  Regulars,  passing  through  the  front  regiment, 
made  three-quarters  of  a  mile,  where  it  met  machine- 
gun  fire  from  both  flanks.  At  7.30,  the  French  on 
the  left  having  made  progress,  the  reserve  regiment 
of  Marines,  passing  through  the  front  regiment, 
made  another  hard-won  gain  against  flanking  fire, 
and  in  the  darkness  had  to  repulse  two  counter- 
attacks. 

It  had  been  a  great  day  even  for  the  2nd  Divi- 
sion, with  four  miles  of  advance  and  a  toll  of  two 
thousand  prisoners;  a  day  of  systematic  and  mas- 
terly fighting  which  had  added  to  its  list  of  honors 
that  of  forcing  the  Germans  forever  out  of  the  deep 
maze  of  the  Champagne  trenches.  The  trucks  and 
the  rolling  kitchens  as  well  as  the  artillery,  which 
had  never  been  far  behind  the  infantry,  were  up  that 
night;  and  the  ambulances,  in  keeping  with  the  race- 
horse spirit,  running  close  up  to  the  front,  had  made 
a  record  in  their  expeditious  care  of  the  wounded, 
who  had  been  gathered  with  a  promptness,  in  the 


DISENGAGING  RHEIMS  257 

fields  under  fire,  worthy  of  a  show  drill  at  maneuvers. 
For  if  we  had  any  division  which  knew  how,  and 
had  reasons  of  long  service  for  knowing  how,  to 
coordinate  all  its  branches  in  action,  it  was  the  divi- 
sion which  had  learned  its  lessons  in  the  taking  of 
Belleau  Wood,  Vaux,  and  Vauxcastille. 

It  need  not  be  said  that  the  program  was  to 
continue  the  advance  the  next  day;  but  the  Germans 
had  been  preparing  overnight  to  impede  its  fulfill- 
ment with  something  of  the  same  ferocity  they  had 
shown  in  the  Essen  trench.  As  usual  in  these 
days,  after  the  Allied  attack  had  spent  its  initial 
momentum  in  breaking  them  out  of  their  fortifica- 
tions, the  Germans  reacted  by  applying  open  war- 
fare tactics  on  a  second  line  of  resistance.  While 
the  French  were  striving  to  come  up  on  both  flanks, 
the  whole  line  was  being  deluged  with  shells  and 
machine-gun  fire.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  first  day, 
the  Marines  by  their  customarily  swift  tactics  had 
taken  a  portion  of  Blanc-Mont — the  adjective  being 
used  before  the  name,  contrary  to  modern  French 
fashion — a  hill  which  ran  back  in  an  irregular  shelf 
covered  by  patches  of  sparse  woods.  Well-made 
trenches,  dugouts,  and  communicating  trenches  so 
easily  dug  and  kept  up  in  the  firm  chalk,  were  evi- 
dence of  the  German's  appreciation  of  the  hill's 
importance  in  the  defense  of  their  positions  east  of 
Rheims. 


258  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

A  congeries  of  machine-gun  nests  on  its  west 
slope,  which  was  still  untaken,  by  its  enfilade  fire 
from  our  sector  had  stopped  the  advance  of  the 
French  on  the  left.  Without  waiting  for  them,  and 
with  a  view  to  clearing  the  way  for  them,  the 
Marines  on  the  afternoon  of  the  4th,  supported  by 
their  artillery,  attacked  this  position.  They  tested 
out  its  strength  well  enough,  in  face  of  withering 
blasts,  to  learn  that  they  must  devise  another  plan 
of  assault.  This  was  a  wise  precaution,  as  the  event 
was  to  prove.  They  spent  the  night  in  tireless  and 
canny  preparations  for  the  next  day's  effort.  Early 
in  the  morning  a  battalion  started  over  the  ridge. 
They  did  not  want  for  shields;  and  their  confidence 
in  the  accuracy  of  their  veteran  artillery  led  them 
to  keep  close  behind  the  smothering  fire  of  the  bar- 
rage with  a  speed  and  agility  in  the  systematic 
advance  of  their  units  which  made  a  record  even  for 
the  race-horse  division.  The  German  machine- 
gunners,  as  they  saw  that  hurricane  of  bursting 
shells  approaching,  rushed  to  cover,  which  they 
hugged  in  desperate  and  prayerful  intimacy  as  it 
passed  over  them.  They  rose,  to  find  that  a  human 
whirlwind  in  its  train  was  upon  them.  Without  a 
single  casualty  the  battalion  had  taken  213  prisoners 
and  75  machine-guns.  The  thing  seemed  miracu- 
lous; but  there  were  the  machine-guns,  and  there 
were  the  startled  Germans  who  had  thrown  up  their 


DISENGAGING  RHEIMS  259 

hands.  When  I  went  over  the  ground,  still  littered 
with  equipment  and  scattered  cartridge  cases,  that 
commanded  every  avenue  of  approach,  I  had  an 
example  which  might  well  be  quoted  in  all  future 
text-books  of  how  speed  and  skill  may  get  "  the 
jump  "  on  an  enemy.  Here  was  certainly  something, 
not  to  tell  the  Marines,  but  for  the  Marines  to  tell 
those  Regulars,  who,  holding  a  large  section  of  the 
line,  could  respond  that  though  they  had  no  the- 
atrical exhibits  to  please  the  gallery  gods  they  were 
having  an  affair  of  their  own  which  might  make  any 
Marine  thankful  for  his  health's  sake  that  he  was 
climbing  hills. 

On  the  right  of  the  Regular  brigade  the  French 
had  not  yet  taken  Medeah  farm,  which  was  a  per- 
fect haven  for  machine-guns  bearing  on  the  Regu- 
lars' flank.  The  Germans,  in  this  section,  were  fight- 
ing hard  enough  to  atone  for  the  easy  surrender  of 
their  comrades  on  Blanc-Mont  in  their  defense  of 
the  ridges  in  front  of  the  village  of  Saint-Etienne-a- 
Arnes,  the  next  landmark  in  the  path  of  the  2nd's 
progress.  The  Marines  found  a  thorn  in  the  flesh 
in  a  strong  point  near  Blanc-Mont,  whose  defenders 
refused  to  be  stampeded.  Enemy  artillery  fire  was 
furious  throughout  the  5th.  On  the  morning  of  the 
6th,  at  6.30,  under  another  hurricane  barrage,  a 
regiment  of  Regulars  and  one  of  Marines  side  by 
side   set  out  to   take   the   last  ridge  before   Saint- 


260  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Etienne.  This  meant  that  something  had  to  break. 
It  was  one  of  the  occasions  when  professional  spirit 
did  not  consider  the  folly  of  suicide,  as  the  rival 
units  charged  side  by  side.  They  took  the  ridge 
with  a  loss  that  was  estimated  at  thirty  per  cent, 
and  dug  in.  The  French  on  the  left  had  forged 
ahead.  Meanwhile,  with  the  French  on  the  right 
valiantly  struggling  against  Medeah  farm,  and  our 
Regulars  checked,  our  line  was  at  a  sharp  angle. 

It  had  been  a  grueling  day  for  a  division  which 
notably  never  spared  itself  in  its  high-strung  inten- 
sity; and  four  or  five  days  seem  to  have  been  the 
limit  of  endurance  for  soldiers  who  were  continu- 
ously fighting.  Relief  for  the  2nd  was  due.  On 
the  night  of  the  6th  the  36th  Division,  National 
Guard  of  Texas  and  Oklahoma,  under  command  of 
Major-General  William  R.  Smith,  which  was  lately 
from  home  and  had  never  been  under  fire  before, 
began  arriving.  Its  fresh  and  inexperienced  bat- 
talions were  now  mixed  with  the  tired  battalions  of 
the  2nd  to  learn  the  art  of  war  at  first  hand  from 
old  masters,  who  included  not  only  their  comrades 
of  the  Regulars  and  Marines  but  the  Germans  in 
a  very  ugly  mood.  After  a  day  of  reorganizing  and 
digging,  while  the  French  were  in  the  outskirts  of 
Saint-Etienne,  the  Marines  on  the  left  and  a  regi- 
ment of  the  36th  on  the  right  charged  Saint- 
Etienne  on  the  morning  of  the  8th.     The  French 


DISENGAGING  RHEIMS  261 

were  reported  to  have  patrols  in  the  town,  but  a 
portion  of  it  at  least  seemed  to  be  very  much  in  the 
hands  of  the  enemy.  At  least  his  machine-gunners, 
in  the  course  of  their  supple  infiltrations,  had  estab- 
lished themselves  in  the  adjoining  cemetery,  which 
gave  them  a  free  sweep  of  fire  across  the  ground  of 
our  advance,  which  was  open  fields  without  any 
more  cover  than  a  house  floor.  For  half  a  kilometer 
the  men  of  the  36th  kept  their  line  even  with  the 
veterans.  The  Marines  entered  the  town  while  the 
men  of  the  36th  were  still  in  the  open. 

It  was  the  Southwesterners'  first  taste  of  machine- 
gun  nests.  They  had  no  standards  of  previous  ex- 
perience for  judgment  as  to  the  density  of  fire  which 
would  warrant  a  halt.  Their  orders  were  to  keep 
on  going;  and  they  kept  on.  In  front  of  them,  as 
they  crossed  the  open,  was  a  wooded  ravine.  Our 
guns  could  not  bombard  it  with  any  appreciable 
effect  upon  its  nests,  which  were  sending  a  tornado 
of  bullets  into  the  36th's  charge  in  addition  to  the 
shower  of  shells  from  the  German  guns.  The 
Southwesterners  who  were  meeting  both  bullets  and 
shells  for  the  first  time  did  not  fall  back  before  this 
deadly  combination  of  artillery  and  machine-gun 
fire,  which  would  have  dismayed  hardened  veterans 
at  their  best,  until  they  had  kept  faith  with  Alamo 
traditions  by  losing  a  third  of  their  numbers. 

The  2nd's  engineers  now  came  up  for  a  fighting 


262  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

part  in  protecting  our  hard-pressed  flanks.  We 
withdrew  our  front  to  the  town,  which  we  held. 
Meanwhile,  though  the  French  had  taken  Medeah 
farm,  the  division's  right  was  still  well  back  of  the 
line  of  Saint-Etienne.  All  day  of  the  9th  was  spent 
in  re-forming  our  position  after  the  see-sawing  con- 
flict of  the  8th;  but  the  Germans,  far  from  showing 
any  signs  of  withdrawal,  made  a  counter-attack  on 
the  French  beyond  Medeah  farm  and  on  our  Regu- 
lars, who  repulsed  it  with  their  rifle  fire. 

The  race-horse  division,  which  had  been  hurried 
from  the  mud  of  the  Saint-Mihiel  sector  without 
time  to  rest,  had  been  doing  a  steeple-chase  for  nine 
days.  Physical  exhaustion  claimed  it  for  its  own. 
As  it  withdrew,  with  casualties  of  4,771  and  the 
capture  of  1,963  prisoners  from  eight  German  divi- 
sions, the  Regulars  and  Marines  and  the  French 
of  the  Twenty-first  Corps  had  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  German  guns  had  fired  their  last  shot 
at  the  cathedral  and  the  ruins  of  the  city  of  Rheims. 

The  Texans  and  Oklahomans  who  now  took  up 
the  battle  were  assigned  the  tired  artillery  of  the 
2nd,  as  they  had  no  guns  of  their  own.  They  lacked 
horses,  transport,  and  nearly  everything  a  division 
should  have,  except  rifles,  which  were  in  the  hands 
of  men  who  knew  how  to  use  them.  On  the  morn- 
ing of  the  10th  their  reconnaissance  in  force  showed 
that  the  enemy  artillery  and  machine-gun  fire  was 


DISENGAGING  RHEIMS  263 

as  powerful  as  ever.  It  was  hardly  in  the  books 
that  an  inexperienced  division  should  begin  a  move- 
ment in  the  dark;  but  the  French  being  ready  to 
advance  on  the  left,  the  36th  began  an  attack  that 
evening. 

The  Germans,  already  preparing  for  retreat,  still 
had  large  forces  of  field  artillery  in  range.  Evidently 
they  were  determined  to  take  revenge  on  these  new 
troops  by  expending  in  the  rapid  fire  of  a  prolonged 
bombardment  all  they  could  of  their  ammunition, 
instead  of  leaving  it  behind  to  be  captured.  The 
accurate  and  moving  sheet  of  death  which  was  laid 
down  upon  the  advancing  infantry  of  the  36th  was 
the  kind  from  which  men  will  withdraw  in  the  sheer 
instinct  of  self-preservation.  Indeed,  a  panic  would 
have  been  excusable.  But  the  lean  tall  Texans  and 
Oklahomans  had  not  come  all  the  way  from  home 
to  be  in  a  battle  at  last  with  any  idea  of  celebrating 
the  occasion,  or  gratifying  the  Germans,  by  a  re- 
treat, because  of  a  display  of  fireworks.  Among  the 
leaping  flashes  in  the  dark,  with  voices  unheard  and 
men  revealed  for  an  instant  in  shadowy  outline,  with 
officers  who  had  the  direction  of  units  being  killed 
and  wounded,  with  gaps  being  torn  in  the  line,  there 
was  bound  to  be  some  disorganization.  But  there 
was  no  faltering.  The  Texans  and  Oklahomans 
are  not  by  nature  panicky.  They  accepted  stoically 
this  screaming  tumult  of  destruction.     Particularly 


264  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

it  was  not  the  nature  of  the  Indians  among  them  to 
be  distracted  by  a  "  heap  big  noise."  Officers 
agreed  that  there  was  no  problem  except  that  of 
keeping  units  together.  All  the  men  wanted  was 
to  "  get  back  "  at  the  German,  straight  into  his  bar- 
rage. Pressing  on  as  they  closed  up  their  gaps,  the 
charging  groups  with  the  bit  in  their  teeth  took  the 
village  of  Machault. 

The  enemy  resistance  had  suddenly  broken. 
After  this  final  spasm  of  splenetic  reprisal,  all  the 
German  guns  were  moving  fast  toward  the  Aisne. 
The  Texans  and  Oklahomans  did  not  waste  much 
time  over  the  machine-gunners  who  attempted  a 
rearguard  action,  but  "  hiked "  ahead  for  fifteen 
miles  in  a  single  day,  as  a  reminder  to  the  2nd, 
which  had  considered  them  "  tenderfeet,"  that  in  the 
matter  of  long-distance  racing  they  yielded  the  honor 
to  nobody.  Bridges  destroyed,  machine-gun  nests 
established  on  the  north  of  the  river,  the  German 
served  notice  that  he  was  to  make  another-  stand. 
The  Texans  and  Oklahomans  enjoyed  themselves  in 
swimming  across  on  scouting  trips  and  in  a  period 
of  active  sniping  gratifying  to  ranger  inheritance. 
The  last  day  they  were  in  line  they  completed  their 
brief  service  by  cleaning  up  Forest  farm,  east  of 
Attigny,  in  an  uninterrupted  rush  which  gave  them 
the  opportunity  to  make  the  most  of  their  qualities, 
and  in  ejecting  the  enemy  from  a  bend  in  the  river 


DISENGAGING  RHEIMS  265 

which  he  still  held.  Their  casualties  were  2,651, 
and  they  had  taken  813  prisoners  and  an  engineer 
depot  worth  ten  millions  of  dollars,  which  had  sup- 
plied that  section  of  the  German  line  for  four  years. 
It  was  their  only  battle,  but  they  had  fought  it  in  a 
way  to  make  the  most  of  it,  in  attest  to  the  enemy 
of  what  might  be  expected  of  such  a  new  division, 
if,  fully  equipped,  it  should  take  to  the  war-path 
again. 


XV 


VETERANS  DRIVE  A  WEDGE 

Skill  essential  to  break  the  heights  east  of  the  Aire — The  "  per 
schedule  "  ist  Division — The  much-used  32nd  Division — A 
combined  frontal  attack  on  October  4th — A  thin  wedge  to 
Fleville  on  the  Aire — Which  is  broadened  to  the  east  the  next 
day. 

After  this  diversion  to  the  accounts  of  divisions 
detached  for  other  offensives,  we  return  now  to  our 
own  battle  in  the  Meuse-Argonne,  where  we  had 
learned  to  our  cost  in  the  two  last  days  of  Septem- 
ber that  no  nibbling  attacks  at  the  close  of  a  drive 
that  had  spent  its  momentum  would  serve  our  pur- 
pose against  the  gathering  power  of  the  enemy. 
There  was  no  abatement  in  our  industry  as  we 
rested  our  weary  divisions  still  in  line,  replaced  ex- 
hausted with  fresh  divisions,  brought  up  fresh  mate- 
rial, improved  our  road  facilities,  and  tightened  our 
organization  during  the  temporary  deadlock  of 
furious  nagging  under  incessant  fire  at  the  front. 

All  thought  centered,  every  finger  moving  about 
a  map  eventually  came  to  rest,  on  the  bastion  of 
the  heights  to  the  east  of  the  Aire  river.  To  the 
west  its  fire  swept  across  the  river  trough,  where 
the  Pennsylvanians  of  the  28th  Division  were  in  a 

266 


S<~AL£    OF  MILES 


MAP    NO.    7 
IN    THE    TROUGH    OF    TTTE    AIRE. 


VETERANS  DRIVE  A  WEDGE       267 

vise,  to  the  Forest  where  the  New  York  City  men 
of  the  77th  were  held  fast  in  their  tracks;  south- 
west and  south  it  looked  down  upon  Exermont 
ravine  and  the  ground  which  the  Missourians  and 
Kansans  had  had  to  yield  after  the  charges  that  had 
taken  the  last  of  their  strength,  leaving  the  2  8th's 
flank  in  the  trough  further  exposed;  southeast  upon 
Gesnes  and  Cierges,  where  the  battalions  of  the 
Pacific  Coast  men  of  the  91st  and  the  Ohio  men  of 
the  37th  in  their  weariness  had  been  stopped  by  its 
blasts;  and  to  the  east  on  the  valley  north  of  Mont- 
faucon,  where  the  Eastern  Coast  men  of  the  79th 
had  expended  the  last  of  their  reserves  against  the 
Ogons  Wood,  and  beyond  upon  the  stalwart  4th, 
which  was  also  being  shelled  by  the  batteries  across 
the  Meuse,  whose  bank  the  Illinois  men  of  the  33rd 
were  holding. 

This  mighty  outpost  locked  the  door  to  all  the 
approaches  to  the  whale-back.  There  was  no  use 
of  puttering  with  Fabian  tactics;  it  could  be  taken 
only  by  a  spearhead  drive.  Though  salients  are  the 
bane  of  generals,  the  only  thing  to  do  in  this  case 
was  to  make  a  salient.  For  this  we  must  have 
troops  of  the  mettle  of  Pickett's  charge  and  the 
charge  at  Cold  Harbor,  whose  courage  would  hesi- 
tate at  no  sacrifice,  and  whose  skill  and  thrift  would 
win  victory  with  their  sacrifice. 

Our  1st  was  our  pioneer  division  in  France.     It 


268  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

had  fired  our  first  shot  in  the  war;  had  fought  the 
first  American  offensive  at  Cantigny;  had  driven 
through  with  the  loss  of  half  its  infantry  to  the 
heights  of  Soissons  in  turning  the  tide  against  the 
Germans;  and  in  its  swift  and  faultless  maneuver 
in  the  Saint-Mihiel  operation  it  had  joined  hands 
with  the  26th  Division  to  close  the  salient.  Being 
a  proved  "  shock  "  division,  too  valuable  to  be  kept 
in  a  stationary  line  when  another  offensive  was  in 
preparation,  it  was  immediately  withdrawn  from 
Saint-Mihiel  and  sent  to  the  Meuse-Argonne  area, 
where  its  presence  in  reserve  was  a  consoling 
thought.  At  first  the  Army  command  considered 
expending  it  in  a  sweep  up  the  east  bank  of  the 
Meuse  to  take  the  heights  which  were  raking  our 
Third  Corps  with  flanking  artillery  fire;  and  later 
considered  using  it  to  follow  through  the  center, 
after  the  taking  of  Montfaucon,  in  a  direct  thrust 
at  the  whale-back.  These  missions  had  to  yield  to 
the  more  pressing  one,  which  stopped  all  traffic  to 
make  way  for  its  rapid  march  around  the  rear  of 
the  line  on  September  30th  to  take  the  place  of  the 
35th  in  face  of  these  monstrous  heights. 

This  division  wasted  little  time  and  few  words  on 
sentiment.  The  hardships  of  war  had  become  a 
matter  of  course  to  its  survivors.  Recruits  who 
filled  the  gaps  from  death,  as  they  were  rapidly 
inculcated  into  its  standards,  absorbed  the  profes- 


VETERANS  DRIVE  A  WEDGE       269 

sional  spirit.  "  You  belong  to  the  1st,  Buddy.  And 
this  is  the  way  we  do  things  in  the  1st  " — was  the 
mandate  of  initiation  into  a  proud  company,  which 
was  facing  its  second  winter  in  France.  The  only 
way  to  escape  another  winter  in  France  was  to  win 
the  war;  and  the  way  to  win  the  war  was  by  hard 
fighting.  The  regular  field  officers  had  been  trained 
in  a  severe  school;  five  out  of  six  of  the  company 
officers  were  reservists.  It  was  one  of  these  young 
lieutenants,  later  killed  in  action,  who  characterized 
the  views  of  the  division  when  he  said:  "  This  is  a 
mean  and  nasty  kind  of  war,  but  it's  the  only  war 
we've  got,  and  I  hope  it's  the  last  we'll  ever  have. 
The  right  way  to  fight  it  is  to  be  just  as  mean  and 
nasty,  and  just  as  much  on  the  job,  as  the  mean  and 
nasty  Boche." 

In  command  was  Major-General  Charles  P.  Sum- 
merall,  who  had  led  the  1st  in  the  drive  to  Soissons. 
He  is  a  leader  compounded  of  all  kinds  of  fighting 
qualities,  a  crusader  and  a  calculating  tactician,  who, 
some  say,  can  be  as  gentle  as  a  sweet-natured 
chaplain,  while  others  say  that  he  is  nothing  but 
brimstone  and  ruthless  determination.  "  As  per 
schedule  "  are  the  first  words  of  his  divisional  re- 
port, which  is  as  brief  and  cold  prose  as  I  have 
seen,  describing  as  hot  action  as  I  have  ever  known. 
He  might  be  called  "  per  schedule  "  Summerall,  and 
the  1st  the  "per  schedule  "  division. 


270 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


Another  veteran  division  was  to  form  the  right 
side  of  the  wedge:  the  32nd,  National  Guard  of 
Michigan  and  Wisconsin,  under  Major-General 
William  G.  Haan,  a  leader  whose  fatherly  direction 
and  "  flare  "  communicated  team-play  and  enthu- 
siasm which  an  iron  will  could  drive  to  its  limit  in 
battle.  Iron  was  needed  now :  the  iron  of  the 
spearhead,  which  would  not  blunt.  The  32nd 
knew  open  warfare  from  its  storming  of  the  heights 
of  the  Ourcq  in  the  Chateau-Thierry  operations; 
and  working  its  way  over  trench  warrens  from 
its  three  days'  fighting  as  a  division  attached  to 
Mangin's  Army  in  the  Juvigny  operation  north  of 
Soissons.  Sent  from  its  first  hard  battle  to  its  sec- 
ond without  time  for  rest  or  replacements,  it 
marched  away  from  Juvigny,  after  losses  of  seven 
thousand  six  hundred  men  in  the  two  battles,  with 
half  its  requisite  number  of  infantry  officers  and  its 
infantry  companies  reduced  to  one  hundred  men. 
When  it  went  into  camp  at  Joinville,  it  had  eight 
days,  hardly  enough  to  recuperate  from  its  exhaus- 
tion, in  which  to  train  in  its  veteran  ways  five  thou- 
sand replacements,  before,  with  only  two  hundred 
men  to  the  company — and  half  recruits,  be  it  remem- 
bered,— and  with  each  company  short  three  officers, 
it  was  started  for  the  Meuse-Argonne  area.  But 
it  was  considered — it  must  be  considered — veteran 
by  the  Army  command  for  this  emergency,  which 


VETERANS  DRIVE  A  WEDGE       271 

was  to  give  it  a  front  of  three  miles  in  the  place 
of  the  relieved  37th  and  91st  Divisions.  The  Arrow 
division,  as  it  was  called,  which  had  twice  pierced 
the  German  line,  was  to  pierce  it  a  third  time  before 
it  was  withdrawn  again. 

In  comparison  with  the  32nd,  the  1st  was  at  the 
top  of  its  form.  It  had  not  had  heavy  losses  since 
its  Soissons  drive  of  July  i8th-22nd.  The  two 
months'  training  of  the  replacements  which  it  had 
then  received  included  its  experience  in  the  Saint- 
Mihiel  operation,  which  had  been  instructive  with- 
out leaving  many  gaps  in  its  ranks.  On  the  ist's 
front  were  the  5th  Guard  and  52nd  German  Divi- 
sions, which  had  come  fresh  into  line.  So  veterans 
met  veterans.  The  character  of  the  opposition 
which  the  Missourians  and  Kansans  of  the  35th, 
whom  the  1st  had  relieved,  had  faced,  may  be 
judged  by  the  fact  that  for  the  four  days  in  line 
before  it  advanced  the  1st  had  daily  average  casual- 
ties of  five  hundred,  while  its  men  were  hugging 
their  fox-holes,  readjusting  their  line,  and  throwing 
out  patrols  to  gain  information  of  service  in  the 
coming  attack. 

Immediately  ahead  of  it  was  the  Montrebeau 
Wood,  which  the  Germans  had  been  fortifying  since 
they  recovered  it  from  the  35th;  beyond  that  the 
deep  broad  Exermont  ravine,  guarded  in  the  center 
by  the  Montrefagne,  or  Hill   240,   with  its  crest 


272  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

crowned  by  woods  which  covered  its  slopes  almost 
to  the  edge  of  the  ravine.  This  was  only  the  highest 
of  the  series  of  hills  which  extended  west  to  east 
from  the  Aire  valley  across  the  sector  of  the  32nd. 
When  the  first  series  was  taken,  other  hills  still 
higher  commanded  the  valleys  and  reverse  slopes 
beyond,  in  a  witchery  of  irregularities  which  had 
their  culmination  in  a  final  congeries  of  wooded  hills 
in  front  of  the  Kriemhilde  Stellung  of  the  whale- 
back,  some  six  miles  beyond  the  ist's  line  of  depar- 
ture. Every  open  space  was  covered  by  interlock- 
ing machine-gun  nests  supported  by  artillery  con- 
centrations. Ravines  were  corridors  for  the  sweep 
of  fire;  or  if  they  gave  cover  their  ends  were  sealed 
by  fire.  With  its  left  moving  along  the  eastern  wall 
of  the  Aire,  its  flank  naked  to  the  fire  from  the 
western  wall,  the  1st  was  to  drive  a  human  wedge 
over  these  hills  in  order  to  gain  one  of  the  two  sides 
of  the  trough,  whose  interlocking  and  plunging  fire, 
as  we  have  seen,  had  stayed  the  First  Corps  in  the 
trough  and  in  the  Forest.  Of  course,  the  1st  would 
"  go  through  "  at  the  start.  Its  own  record  and 
standards  compelled  it  to  go  through.  It  would 
make  the  wedge.  What  would  be  the  result  after 
the  wedge  was  made?  Unless  the  point  of  the 
wedge  were  protected  by  a  spreading  movement  at 
its  base,  it  would  be  crushed  by  pressure  from  both 
sides.     Here  the  part  of  the  32nd  became  vital  in 


VETERANS  DRIVE  A  WEDGE       273 

gaining  the  hills  on  its  front,  which,  remaining  in 
the  enemy's  hands,  would  threaten  the  right  of  the 
I st  with  a  fire  interlocking  with  that  from  the 
western  wall  of  the  Aire.  In  the  valley  of  the  Aire, 
of  course,  the  Pennsylvanians  of  the  28th  were  to 
try  to  advance  under  cover  of  the  ist's  thrust.  If 
they  were  checked,  and  the  32nd  were  also  checked, 
the  Germans  would  not  be  slow  to  see  or  to  im- 
prove their  opportunity  to  force  a  repetition  of 
the  bloody  result  of  Pickett's  charge  and  of  the 
assault  at  Cold  Harbor. 

The  1st  and  the  32nd  were  not  the  only  veterans 
attacking  on  October  4th.  There  was  to  be  an 
offensive  along  our  whole  line  to  engage  the  enemy 
at  every  point  to  support  the  prime  object  of  mak- 
ing the  wedge.  The  1st  started  for  its  objectives 
at  the  same  hour,  daylight,  as  the  other  divisions. 
Its  left  overran  the  Germans  of  the  5th  Guard 
Division  in  Montrebeau  Wood,  and  swept  down 
into  the  Exermont  ravine.  There  the  groups  of 
dead  of  the  35th,  killed  by  shell-bursts,  gave  warn- 
ing against  "bunching"  that  the  men  of  the  1st 
took  to  heart.  They  did  not  move  forward  in 
dense  formation,  but  in  thin  swift  lines  offering  the 
enemy  few  targets,  and  those  briefly.  Orders  were 
simple;  responsibility  direct  and  ruthlessly  delegated. 
Company  leaders  knew  what  to  do  against  machine- 


274  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

gun  nests,  and  they  did  it,  thanks  to  the  fresh  vigor 
and  thorough  training  of  the  men. 

Quivering  under  the  blows  of  the  hammer  of  com- 
mand and  determination,  the  left  was  driven  three 
miles  that  day,  against  fire  from  three  directions 
manipulated  by  the  cleverly  conceived  and  cunningly 
executed  open  warfare  tactics  of  the  enemy:  in  and 
out  of  the  folds  of  ground,  uphill  and  downhill, 
taking  machine-guns  with  barrels  hot,  as  the  Ger- 
man gunners  fired  until  the  last  moment.  That 
night  it  sent  patrols  into  Fleville,  a  village  on  the 
bank  of  the  Aire  at  the  foot  of  a  bluff,  with  the 
Germans  holding  the  other  bank  three  miles  in  their 
rear.  The  possession  of  Fleville  was  that  of  a 
name  on  the  map,  which  read  well  in  communiques. 
Holding  the  high  ground  above  it  was  what  counted, 
in  the  same  way  that  possession  of  the  porch  counts 
if  you  wish  to  throw  stones  at  a  man  on  the  drive- 
way below;  and  holding  it  in  face  of  fire  from  flank 
and  rear  flank  required  men  who  would  dig  holes 
and  stick  to  them.  The  wedge  was  made,  but  it  was 
a  sharp  one  of  only  one  brigade  front,  as  things  had 
not  gone  as  well  as  they  might  either  with  the  right 
of  the  ist  or  with  the  32nd. 

The  right  of  the  ist  crossing  Exermont  ravine 
under  enfilade  and  frontal  fire  charged  into  the 
wooded  slopes  of  the  Montrefagne,  or  Hill  240. 
Twice  that  day  we  had  the  hill;  and  twice  the  Ger- 


VETERANS  DRIVE  A  WEDGE       275 

mans,  reinforced,  surged  back  and  drove  us  off. 
Our  men  were  saying  that  "  every  Boche  who  didn't 
have  a  machine-gun  had  a  cannon  ";  for  the  enemy, 
realizing  the  value  of  every  foot  of  ground,  was 
using  roving  guns  attached  to  his  infantry  battalions. 
We  were  doing  the  same.  There  were  instances, 
in  the  course  of  this  battle  for  the  heights,  when 
our  infantry  charges  came  within  a  hundred  feet  of 
field  guns  which  the  enemy  boldly — and  it  seemed 
miraculously — withdrew  under  our  rifle  fire  to  the 
cover  of  reverse  slopes. 

The  repulse  of  the  right  of  the  1st  was  of  course 
intimately  concerned  with  the  situation  of  the  32nd, 
which  was  fighting  against  the  same  kind  of  tactics 
on  the  same  general  kind  of  ground,  which  had  its 
own  particularly  refractory  qualities.  Before  the 
attack  the  Arrows  had  entered  Cierges,  which  they 
found  unoccupied;  but  the  German  evacuation  of  the 
village  only  opened  up  a  field  of  approach  com- 
manded by  the  strengthened  defenses  of  the  sur- 
rounding positions,  which  had  already  forced  the 
withdrawal  of  the  last  of  the  reserves  of  the  37th 
and  91st  in  their  final  charges  before  being  relieved. 
Thus  the  32nd  had  its  center  in  a  kind  of  trough, 
commanded  by  heights  and  woods.  Gesnes  was  its 
first  goal;  but  to  take  Gesnes  the  positions  east  and 
west  of  it  must  be  conquered.  On  the  right  the 
charge  reached  the  summit  of  Hill  239,  due  east  of 


276  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  village  of  Gesnes,  but  could  go  no  farther.  To 
the  west  were  the  two  woods  Chene  Sec  and 
Morine,  forming  a  single  oblong  patch.  The  left 
charged  them  repeatedly,  in  vain.  The  Arrows 
were  fighting  with  veteran  will,  but  their  charges 
could  not  proceed  against  the  welter  of  machine-gun 
and  artillery  fire,  while  they  were  swept  by  bullets 
from  German  aeroplanes  flying  audaciously  low. 

In  all  that  long  day  of  ceaseless  endeavor,  when 
its  replacements  were  learning  their  lessons  hot 
from  the  enemy's  guns  and  rifles,  the  32nd  had  been 
able  to  gain  a  little  more  than  half  a  mile,  with  every 
rod  counted.  Its  effort  and  that  of  the  right  of  the 
1st,  let  it  be  repeated,  had  been  mutually  dependent 
for  success  on  their  liaison  in  the  hectic  rushes  of 
units  for  points  of  advantage  over  the  treacherous 
ground.  That  is,  if  an  element  of  one  division  made 
a  gain,  it  must  have  the  support  of  a  gain  by  the 
other.  Though  the  wedge  made  by  the  left  of  the 
1st  on  October  4th  was  narrower  than  we  had 
planned,  we  did  have  a  wedge,  and  where  we  wanted 
it — on  the  wall  of  the  Aire  valley.  We  must  not 
lose  that  wedge,  though  the  28th  had  been  able 
to  make  only  a  slight  advance  in  the  valley.  The 
dangerous  position  of  the  left  of  the  1st  on  the  bluff 
above  Fleville  called  for  desperately  hard  driving 
the  next  day  by  both  the  32nd  and  the  ist's  retarded 
right. 


VETERANS  DRIVE  A  WEDGE       277 

In  supporting  the  ist's  right,  whose  advance  was 
so  vital  in  protecting  the  entrant  the  ist's  left  had 
made,  the  32nd  set  its  heart  on  gaining  the  block 
of  the  Morine  and  Chene  Sec  woods  and  Hill  255 
beyond.  From  midnight  to  the  hour  of  attack,  all 
the  artillery  of  the  32nd  pounded  them,  keeping  the 
dark  masses  of  the  woods  and  the  outlines  of  the 
hill  flickeringly  visible  in  the  flashes  of  a  stream  of 
bursting  shells,  which  it  would  seem  no  defender 
could  withstand.  At  6.30  three  battalions  of  in- 
fantry began  the  assault  of  the  woods,  and  over 
the  fresh  shell-craters,  past  smashed  machine-gun 
nests,  through  a  litter  of  fallen  saplings  and  splin- 
tered limbs,  they  kept  on  until  they  reached  the  open. 
This  was  a  triumph  of  incalculable  value  to  the  right 
of  the  1st,  and  in  turn  to  the  wedge  on  the  Aire 
wall.  But  when  the  charge  started  to  go  on  to 
Hill  255,  the  artillery  concentration  could  not  stifle 
the  irresistible  machine-gun  fire  of  the  nests  hidden 
in  all  the  recesses  of  the  forward  slopes,  or  the  guns 
on  the  reverse  slopes  and  on  the  series  of  heights 
beyond. 

Meanwhile  the  center  and  right  had  passed  the 
village  of  Gesnes  through  encircling  fire,  which,  once 
they  were  beyond  the  village,  grew  to  such  volume 
that  they  were  stopped.  Demands  went  back  for. 
more  shells  from  the  divisional  artillery, — demands 
which  the  artillery  of  three  or  four  divisions  and  all 


278  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  heavy  artillery  of  the  Army,  which  could  alone 
reach  the  more  distant  enemy  guns,  could  not  have 
filled.  However,  the  gunners  gave  all  the  volume 
in  their  power  with  all  possible  rapidity.  Again  the 
infantry  moved  forward  to  the  attack;  but  our 
bombardment  seemed  only  to  have  stirred  up  a 
heavier  one  in  answer,  and  brought  additional  enemy 
machine-guns  to  bear.  It  was  hopeless  to  try  to  go 
on.  If  the  Arrows  could  not  go  on,  it  was  folly  to 
remain  targets  nailed  to  exposed  ground  around 
Gesnes,  and  accordingly  they  withdrew  through  the 
town,  but  still  retaining  the  hard-won  woods  on  the 
left,  whose  possession  was  essential  to  the  success 
of  the  attack  of  the  right  of  the  1st. 

The  ist's  goal  on  the  5th  was  that  wooded  hill 
and  the  wooded  slopes  of  the  Montrefagne,  which 
had  resisted  the  efforts  of  yesterday.  During  the 
night  Summerall  had  appeared  among  his  men,  a 
dynamic,  restless  figure,  insisting  that  there  must  be 
no  failure  on  the  morrow.  With  all  the  divisional 
artillery  at  play  in  a  mobile  pattern  of  fire,  at  once 
smashing  the  enemy  machine-gun  nests  and  advanc- 
ing the  shields  where  needed,  the  infantry  in  sys- 
tematic charges  continued  making  progress  until  the 
Montrefagne  was  theirs.  When  darkness  came, 
they  joined  up  with  the  left  in  line  with  Fleville. 
The  wedge  was  this  much  broadened,  its  position 
accordingly  stronger.     As  the   28th  had  still  been 


VETERANS  DRIVE  A  WEDGE       279 

unable  to  make  much  headway,  the  wedge  could  not 
be  driven  farther  until  the  base  was  spread,  with- 
out exposing  a  longer  flank  to  the  fire  from  the 
western  wall  of  the  Aire  valley,  and  on  the  right 
from  the  sector  of  the  32nd,  whose  elements  were 
in  poor  liaison  that  night  with  those  of  the  1st.  So 
the  men  of  the  1st,  become  cave-dwellers  on  the 
heights  in  their  industrious  digging,  had  one  side  of 
the  Aire  trough  as  far  as  Fleville, — and  that  was 
the  intrinsic  value  of  the  wedge.  The  next  step  was 
to  be  the  spreading  of  the  wedge  across  the  valley 
of  the  Aire  itself,  by  thrusting  in  another  fresh  divi- 
sion between  the  1st  and  the  28th  at  the  base  of  the 
bluffs  to  assault  the  Forest  escarpments.  This 
movement  would  support  the  1st,  and  would  in  turn 
be  supported  by  the  ist's  further  advance. 


XVI 


MASTERING  THE  AIRE  TROUGH 


West  of  the  river — The  82nd  Division  called  for — A  difficult  align- 
ment— The  outpost  hills  taken  on  the  7th  of  October — And 
the  28th  cleans  up  the  escarpments  on  its  front — The  all- 
American  character  of  the  82nd — The  enemy  defends  desper- 
ately the  remaining  escarpments — Repeated  charges  up  the 
bluffs — Which  are  cleared  by  the  10th. 


Hovering  in  reserve  since  September  26th,  the 
82nd  Division,  National  Army,  was  now  to  have  its 
turn  to  be  "  expended  "  in  the  battle.  During  its 
period  of  waiting  it  had  two  battalions  severely 
shelled  on  the  way  to  assist  the  35th  Division  in  an 
attack  which  was  countermanded;  and  of  course  its 
engineers  had  been  kept  employed  on  the  roads.  No 
engineers  in  sight  were  ever  out  of  work,  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  the  battle.  Previously  the 
division,  which  had  stayed  but  a  brief  time  on  the 
British  front,  had  served  during  the  summer  months 
on  the  Toul  front,  where  it  had  advanced  on  the 
extreme  right  flank  of  the  Saint-Mihiel  operation. 
Originally  formed  in  the  South,  the  82nd  had  been 
called  the  "  All-American  "  division  because  it  had 
been  filled  with  draft  men  from  all  parts  of  the 
country,   though   its  training-camp   associations    re- 

280 


MASTERING  THE  AIRE  TROUGH  281 

mained  Southern,  and  most  of  its  officers  were  South- 
erners. Now  it  was  chosen  for  the  thrust  in  the 
valley  of  the  Aire  to  spread  the  wedge  which  the 
1  st  had  driven. 

We  know  how  the  28th  Division  threw  its  men 
against  the  Argonne  escarpments  in  the  first  days 
of  the  battle.  Since  then  it  had  remained  in  the 
trough  of  the  Aire  under  continual  flanking  fire, 
while  its  units  had  alternate  periods  of  rest;  but 
after  all  it  had  endured,  even  its  determination  could 
not  give  it  the  vigor  of  a  fresh  division.  On  the 
4th  and  5th,  while  the  1st  on  its  flank  was  advanc- 
ing, and  again  on  the  6th,  while  the  1st  was  dug 
in,  it  had  kept  up  its  attacks,  with  the  net  result 
that  its  left  had  made  some  further  progress  against 
the  Taille  l'Abbe  of  infamous  reputation,  and  its 
right  had  advanced  as  far  as  Hill  180,  a  mile  and 
a  half  to  the  south  of  the  village  of  Fleville  where 
the  men  of  the  1st  were  hugging  the  bluffs,  which 
formed  a  bastion  in  the  trough  interlocking  the 
fire  from  either  side. 

Having  moved  down  the  valley  of  the  Aire  under 
the  portion  of  the  eastern  wall  which  the  1st  held, 
the  82nd  was  to  face  west  and  attack  toward  the 
western  wall.  Getting  into  position  for  the  action 
was  itself  a  ticklish  business  as  a  tactical  maneuver 
for  the  infantry.  The  shell-swept  road  which  it 
was  to  use  for  bringing  its  artillery  and  transport 


282  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

up  this  narrow  passage  under  the  enemy's  flanking 
machine-gun  nests,  was  already  taxed  with  the 
transport  of  the  28th,  which  was  still  to  go  on 
attacking.  The  28th  had  sworn  that  it  would  not 
leave  the  valley  until  it  had  taken  the  Taille  l'Abbe. 
It  had  prior  rights  to  that  formidable  escarpment. 

If  ever  a  division  needed  capable  guides,  it  was 
the  82nd  on  the  night  of  the  6th.  It  had  to  slip 
past  Chatel-Chehery  on  the  opposite  bank  of  the 
river,  from  which  patrols  of  the  28th  had  been 
ejected  in  the  day's  attack,  and  on  past  Hill  223 
and  Hill  180  to  a  point  near  Fleville,  in  a  winding, 
exposed  passage.  There  were  unexpected  delays 
on  the  roads.  At  2.30  in  the  morning  the  artillery 
was  stalled,  and  some  of  the  infantry  was  still  at 
Varennes,  five  miles  from  its  jumping-off  place  for 
the  attack  set  for  three  hours  later.  Guides  failing 
to  appear,  it  was  not  surprising  that  the  regiment 
which  was  to  attack  on  the  left,  or  south,  against 
Hill  223  should  have  gone  too  far  in  the  darkness, 
when  a  man  was  hardly  visible  ten  yards  away;  and, 
after  marching  and  groping  all  night,  should  have 
had  to  retrace  its  steps.  With  men  exhausted  and 
units  confused,  it  arrived  at  its  jumping-off  line  to 
find  that  not  a  single  gun  was  up  for  its  support. 
An  advance  according  to  schedule  became  out  of  the 
question. 

By  accepted  canons  this  misfortune  might  have 


MASTERING  THE  AIRE  TROUGH  283 

ruined  the  whole  movement,  or  at  least  led  to  delay- 
ing the  movements  of  the  other  units;  but  delays 
were  out  of  the  question.  There  was  no  time  to 
communicate  counter-orders  to  the  28th,  which  had 
gathered  all  its  strength  for  a  supreme  effort  whose 
success  depended  upon  the  cooperation  of  the  82nd. 
If  the  whole  line  could  not  go  forward  at  daylight, 
then  all  of  it  that  could  must  go.  Fortunately  the 
dark  night,  which  had  screened  their  movement 
from  accurate  fire  by  the  enemy,  was  followed  by 
a  thick  morning  fog.  This  was  opportune  in  par- 
tially screening  an  attack  which  must  cross  the  river 
in  face  of  the  heights  which  they  were  to  storm. 
The  right,  or  north,  regiment,  as  it  started  on  time, 
had  the  advantage  of  the  fog  in  its  first  rush.  The 
men  forded  through  water  two  and  three  feet  deep; 
the  officers  who  were  leading  pulled  them  up  the 
steep  banks  on  the  other  side.  By  8.30  Hill  180, 
with  its  machine-gun  nests,  which  had  been  one 
of  the  bulwarks  defying  the  thin  line  of  the  28th 
for  nearly  two  weeks,  was  no  longer  in  German 
hands.  The  men  of  the  left  regiment,  starting  at 
9  o'clock  against  a  still  higher  hill,  223,  overlooking 
Chatel-Chehery,  were  swept  at  the  fords  by  enfilade 
shell-fire  and  storms  of  machine-gun  bullets  in  front, 
which  made  fearful  gaps  in  their  ranks.  Under  the 
spur  of  their  delay,  considering  nothing  except  that 
they   must  make   up    for   lost   time,   they   plunged* 


284  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

ahead,  and  once  across  they  did  not  bother  with  any 
deliberate  infiltration  around  machine-gun  nests,  but 
simply  swept  over  them  in  headlong  impatience. 
By  one  o'clock  they  had  the  hill,  a  portion  of  which 
had  been  reached  by  a  small  detachment  of  the  28th. 
They  did  not  know  whether  or  not  the  28th  had 
reached  Chatel-Chehery  until  they  saw  soldiers  of 
the  28th  climbing  the  steep  sides  of  Hill  244  back 
of  the  town.  The  fact  that  two-thirds  of  the  men 
of  two  of  the  companies  of  the  82nd  were  killed  or 
wounded  was  evidence  enough  that  the  1st  was  not 
the  only  division  willing  to  pay  a  price  for  gains 
when  it  was  called  upon  to  be  a  human  wedge.  This 
finished  the  day's  work  for  the  left  regiment,  except 
for  a  German  counter-attack  which  received  such 
prompt  and  efficacious  attention  that  another  was 
not  attempted. 

The  82nd  having  taken  over  a  portion  of  its  line, 
the  28th  had  been  able  to  concentrate  its  forces  on 
the  remainder.  Though  by  all  criteria  the  28th 
should  have  been  counted  as  already  "  expended," 
it  had  an  access  of  energy  at  the  prospect  of  attack- 
ing under  more  favorable  circumstances  the  posi- 
tions which  had  so  long  held  it  back.  After  build- 
ing a  foot-bridge  across  the  Aire,  the  right  regiment 
charged  across  the  level  toward  the  village  of 
Chatel-Chehery,  at  the  base  of  the  heights.  This 
time   the   Pennsylvanians  meant  to  put  more  than 


MASTERING  THE  AIRE  TROUGH   285 

patrols  into  the  village.  Lashed  by  gun-fire  and 
whipped  by  machine-gun  fire  from  the  heights  which 
had  them  seemingly  at  their  mercy,  units  were  rid- 
dled and  their  officers  killed,  with  resulting  disper- 
sion as  undaunted  survivors  sought  for  dead  spaces 
and  cover.  The  colonel  in  command  fell  mortally 
wounded  by  a  machine-gun  bullet  while  directing  his 
men.  His  soldiers  avenged  him  not  only  by  taking 
and  holding  Chatel-Chehery,  but  that  night  they  took 
Hill  244,  the  ridge  following  south  to  the  Taille 
l'Abbe,  silencing  its  galling  fire  on  the  river  bottoms. 
So  much  for  the  right.  The  left  regiment  was 
again  to  attack  the  Taille  l'Abbe.  This,  being  far- 
ther south,  and  toward  the  rear,  than  Chatel- 
Chehery,  which  was  in  turn  south  of  the  82nd's 
front,  further  illustrates  the  anomalous  tactical  situa- 
tion and  the  interdependence  of  all  the  diverse  and 
treacherous  elements  of  ground  and  dispositions  in 
the  problem  of  supporting  the  driving  of  the  ist's 
wedge.  In  the  course  of  their  arduous  ten  days' 
effort  to  carry  out  the  original  plan  of  "  scalloping" 
the  Forest  edge  to  protect  the  frontal  attack  of  the 
77th  through  the  Forest,  the  Pennsylvanians  had 
developed  a  sinuous  line  around  the  slopes  which  in 
places  ran  at  right  angles  to  our  battle-front  as  a 
whole.  It  was  a  line  with  outposts  holding  ravines, 
and  groups  clinging  to  vantage  points  of  all  kinds, 
who,  in  their  fox-holes,  were  the  present  masters  of 


286  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

their  destiny,  isolated  from  communication  by  day 
and  approachable  only  by  silent  crawling  under  cover 
of  darkness.  This  process  of  infiltration  had  bent 
a  shepherd's  crook  around  the  Taille  l'Abbe.  All 
the  whittling  of  ten  long  days  came  to  a  head  in 
the  attack  of  October  7th,  whose  ax's  blow  cut  deep 
into  the  Forest  to  La  Viergette,  past  the  south  flank 
of  the  Taille  l'Abbe,  whose  defenses  must  now 
crumple  under  the  additional  pressure  from  the 
north. 

While  we  are  with  the  28th,  we  shall  follow  its 
career  through  the  Aire  valley  to  the  end.  On  the 
8th  neither  the  general  situation  in  relation  to  the 
neighboring  divisions  nor  its  exhaustion  warranted 
a  general  attack  by  the  28th;  but  it  did  not  neglect 
a  little  chore,  which  gave  it  retributory  satisfaction, 
in  cleaning  up  the  last  of  the  machine-gun  nests  and 
any  vagrant  Germans  remaining  on  the  hateful 
Abbe.  Its  goal  won,  its  honor  avenged,  it  was  now 
to  have  the  rest  which  it  had  as  fully  earned  as  the 
name  of  the  "  Iron  Division,"  which  it  was  now 
being  called.  It  was  relieved  on  the  night  of  the 
8th-9th  by  the  82nd.  In  a  marvelous  endurance 
test  of  twelve  days,  in  which  the  men  had  gone  with- 
out cooked  food  under  continual  rains,  the  Pennsyl- 
vanians  had  suffered  6,149  casualties,  while  1,200 
officers  and  men  had  been  sent  to  hospitals,  ill  as 
the  result  of  the  terrible  strain  and  exposure.     They 


MASTERING  THE  AIRE  TROUGH  287 

had  advanced  over  six  miles.  They  had  taken  550 
prisoners  and  8  guns  in  their  plodding  gains  against 
fearful  odds;  and  do  not  forget,  as  they  will  tell  you, 
that  they  had  also  taken  two  German  locomotives, 
most  useful  for  bringing  up  supplies  on  a  captured 
section  of  railroad  which  the  engineers  had  re- 
paired. The  engineers  particularly,  and  all  the 
Pennsylvanians,  were  proud  of  that  railroad — the 
2  8th's  own  trunk  line;  but  the  proudest  thought  of 
these  emaciated  Guardsmen,  as  they  marched  away, 
was  that  they  had  not  had  to  leave  the  conquest  of 
the  Taille  PAbbe  to  a  fresh  division.  They  had 
taken  it  themselves. 

Now  Hills  223  and  180,  which  the  82nd  had  cap- 
tured in  its  first  day's  fighting  on  the  7th,  were  as 
detached  forts,  nearer  the  eastern  wall  than  the 
western,  in  a  broad  stretch  of  the  valley.  Their 
crests  looked  over  a  rolling  stretch  of  bottom  lands 
to  the  bluffs  of  the  Forest's  edge,  which  were  so 
steep  that  the  naked  earth  broken  by  landslides  held 
only  scattered  dwarf  trees  and  shrubs.  Torrents 
dashed  down  the  ravines  during  heavy  rains.  Scal- 
ing rather  than  assault  was  the  word  to  describe  an 
attempt  at  their  mastery.  Artillery  was  hidden  on 
their  crests,  and  machine-guns  on  their  crests  and 
in  the  favoring  intricacies  of  the  slopes. 

Northwest  from  Hill  180  the  village  of  Cornay 
nestled  at  the  foot  of  an  escarpment  flung  out  from 


288  OUR  GREATEST  BATTJLE 

the  Forest  almost  to  the  river's  bank.  This  promon- 
tory made  of  the  stretch  of  bottom  a  kind  of  bay. 
While  commanding  in  rear  and  flank  the  farther 
advance  of  the  ist  on  the  opposite  river  wall,  it  could 
also  turn  a  flanking  fire  on  any  charge  across  the 
bay  toward  the  bluffs  in  addition  to  the  plunging 
frontal  fire  from  the  bluffs.  Cornay  must  be  taken 
in  order  to  gain  the  valley  as  far  as  Fleville.  On 
the  way  across  the  bay,  either  to  Cornay  or  to  the 
bluffs,  any  charge  must  cross  the  Boulasson  creek, 
which  was  unfordable  at  points.  Thus  this  bay 
was  a  cut  de  sac;  but  a  visible  one.  The  All- 
Americas  knew  what  to  expect  on  their  way  to  the 
heights. 

With  its  personnel  varying  from  little  men  from 
the  tenements  to  tall  lean  men  of  the  cotton-fields, 
the  82nd  had  in  its  pride  of  corps  the  rivalry  of 
community,  region,  and  state.  It  was  said  that  one 
city  division  had  been  careful  in  its  sifting  when  it 
transferred  an  excess  of  its  draft  men  to  the  82nd. 
If  so,  the  result  shows  how  inspectors  may  err  in 
judging  by  the  measure  of  a  recruit's  chest  whether 
or  not  he  will  have  the  heart  of  a  warrior  when 
good  food  reddens  the  blood  pumped  through  the 
valves  it  strengthens,  and  drill  and  comradeship 
stiffen  his  fighting  temper.  The  All-Americas  might 
have  no  state  or  group  of  states  that  claimed  them 
for  its  own;  but  the  conviction  that  they  were  for  all 


MASTERING  THE  AIRE  TROUGH   289 

the  states — all  America — was  the  fostering  spirit  of 
the  four  days  of  unceasing  attack,  that  were  now  to 
begin. 

On  the  8th  the  south  regiment,  moving  down  the 
slope  of  Hill  223  and  crossing  the  level,  had  reached 
the  ridge  beyond  in  two  hours.  By  5  p.m.  it  had 
fought  its  way  to  the  possession  of  a  portion  of  the 
ridge.  Bitterly  yielding  to  the  power  of  the  enemy's 
fire  after  companies,  in  characteristic  all-America 
bravery,  had  lost  half  their  numbers,  it  retired 
down  the  slope  during  the  night  to  dig  itself  pro- 
tection. The  north  regiment  bridged  and  forded 
and  swam  the  creek,  and  fought  all  day  for  Cornay 
and  the  heights  to  the  westward.  The  Germans 
did  not  depend  alone  upon  fire  from  the  heights. 
Their  machine-gunners  were  under  cover  of  the 
bushes  and  knolls  of  the  bottoms,  contesting  the 
passage  of  the  brook,  sweeping  stretches  of  its  wind- 
ing course  with  flanking  as  well  as  frontal  fire. 
Their  roving  field  guns  attached  to  battalions  fired 
at  point-blank  range  upon  the  infantry  wave  as  it 
appeared  on  a  knoll  on  the  other  side  of  the  brook 
before  Cornay,  and  the  men  face  to  face  with  the 
gunners  bore  them  down  and  passed  on.  By  six 
that  afternoon  they  were  in  the  town  and  up  the 
slopes  of  the  adjoining  heights.  There  were  not 
enough  of  them  to  hold  what  they  had  taken.  All 
but  forty  men  of  two  companies  had  been  killed  or 


29o  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

wounded  in  crossing  those  deadly  reaches  of  the 
river  bottom.  As  darkness  fell,  bullets  were  spat- 
tering in  every  street  in  Cornay,  and  pelting  down 
from  the  crest  upon  the  All-Americas,  trying  to  dig 
into  the  slope.  Orders  had  to  be  given  for  with- 
drawal from  Cornay  and  the  most  exposed  ground, 
for  a  night  of  reorganization  in  the  valley  of  the 
brook. 

A  reserve  regiment  of  the  82nd,  having  taken 
over  the  2  8th's  front,  spent  the  next  day  under 
galling  fire  in  swinging  its  line  up  level  with  the 
other  regiments.  Again  a  charge,  running  the 
gamut  from  the  bluffs  and  in  face  of  machine-gun 
nests  in  the  village  itself,  entered  Cornay  at  1 1  A.M. ; 
again  we  were  slowly  forcing  our  way  up  the  heights 
where  in  places  the  men  could  climb  only  by  draw- 
ing themselves  up  by  bushes  and  dwarf  trees.  Re- 
duced in  number  by  the  incessant  drain  of  casualties, 
beginning  to  feel  the  exhaustion  from  three  days' 
fighting  and  nights  practically  without  sleep,  they 
thought  that  this  time  they  could  hold  their  gains; 
but  at  dusk  a  German  counter-attack  launched  right 
across  the  river  bottom  from  Fleville  to  Cornay 
under  a  barrage  of  shells  and  machine-gun  bullets, 
and  by  infiltration  from  the  heights  into  Cornay, 
where  our  men  fought  from  house  to  house  in  a 
confused  struggle  against  odds,  forced  those  of 
the  advanced  groups  who  did  not  remain  to  die  in 


MASTERING  THE  AIRE  TROUGH   291 

their  tracks  to  fall  back  upon  their  reserves,  who 
stood  fast.  The  Germans  depended  much  upon 
that  counter-attack,  and  they  made  it  at  a  time 
when  the  losses  and  exhaustion  of  the  82nd,  of 
which  they  were  fully  aware,  might  well  have  led 
them  to  think  that  this  young  division  would  break 
under  a  sharp  blow.  Far  from  breaking,  the 
82nd,  having  savagely  and  promptly  repulsed  the 
counter-attack,  was,  despite  its  casualties,  further  to 
extend  its  front  that  night  by  taking  over  the  eastern 
bank  of  the  river  from  the  1st  Division. 

October  10th  was  to  see  the  culmination  of  the 
movement  in  the  trough  of  the  Aire,  when  the  77th, 
the  pressure  on  its  flank  released,  was  to  begin  its 
final  sweep  through  the  Forest.  It  was  to  be  a 
day  of  such  retribution  for  the  82nd  as  the  28th 
had  had  in  the  taking  of  the  Taille  l'Abbe;  hills  and 
woods  are  the  landmarks  of  divisional  histories  in 
this  battle.  The  dead  of  the  82nd  were  inter- 
mingled with  the  dead  enemy  on  the  slopes  and  in 
Cornay,  and  in  that  stretch  of  the  river  bottom 
which  in  its  exposure  resembles  more  closely  than 
the  background  of  any  other  charge  in  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  battle  the  open  fields  which  Pickett's  men 
crossed  in  their  rush  up  the  slopes  of  Seminary 
Ridge.  The  gallant  officers  who  led  these  men  knew 
that  they  would  follow,  and  Major-General  George 
B.  Duncan,  who  had  taken  command  of  the  division 


292  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

before  the  battle,  was  serene  and  resourceful  in  his 
confidence. 

Along  the  embankment,  along  the  banks  of  the 
creek,  in  little  gullies  and  dips  of  that  cul  de  sac  of 
a  bay,  they  had  pegged  down  their  gains  as  the 
jumping-off  places  for  their  assaults  on  the  gallery 
of  heights  overlooking  the  stage  of  their  indomitable 
tenacity.  They  were  fighting  against  better  than 
German  veterans — German  specialists.  The  pris- 
oners they  took  usually  yielded  not  in  bodies  but 
as  individuals  or  small  groups,  wounded,  exhausted, 
surrounded  by  dead.  Two  out  of  three  of  those  in 
the  Cornay  region  were  machine-gunners  or  chosen 
non-commissioned  officers  who  were  trusted  to  fight 
to  the  death  and  make  the  most  of  their  sacrifice 
by  their  skill.  First  and  last  the  82nd  captured  277 
machine-guns,  as  the  harvest  of  its  courage  at  close 
quarters. 

On  the  morning  of  the  10th  it  brought  its  field 
guns  close  up  behind  the  infantry,  assigned  roving 
guns  to  its  battalions,  and  placed  its  Hotchkiss  guns 
and  its  little  37^  in  the  front  line,  which  smashed 
machine-gun  nests  at  point-blank  range.  Now  the 
All-Americas  took  Cornay  for  the  last  time,  clear- 
ing its  streets  and  cellars;  swept  up  the  valley  and 
over  the  ridge  above  Cornay;  and  sprinting  patrols 
entered  Marcq  in  the  plain  beyond,  while  from  the 
conquered  higher  ground  they  looked  down  upon 


MASTERING  THE  AIRE  TROUGH   293 

the  bend  of  the  river  toward  Grandpre,  where  it 
passes  between  the  Argonne  and  the  Boult  Forests. 
At  last  the  trough  of  the  Aire  with  both  its  walls 
was  ours  from  Varennes  past  Cornay.  The  taking 
of  the  gap  of  Grandpre  which  brought  us  in  face 
of  the  heights  beyond  may  wait  upon  an  account  of 
the  action  of  the  1st  and  32nd  from  October  6th 
to   nth. 


XVII 

VETERANS  CONTINUE  DRIVING 

The  ist  marking  time — A  fumble  gives  one  height — Relying  on  the 
engineers — The  triangle  of  hills — A  tribute  from  the  enemy — 
The  Arrow  Division  also  pointed  at  the  whale-back — Which 
resists  intact — Still  the  ist  goes  on — "As  good  as  the  ist." 

[As  soon  as  the  82nd's  attacks  on  the  river  bottoms 
were  well  under  way,  the  ist  was  to  make  another 
rush,  driving  its  wedge  ahead  of  the  82nd's  front 
over  the  hills  of  the  eastern  wall.  On  the  6th,  the 
day  before  the  All-Americas  took  Hills  180  and 
.223,  and  the  day  before  the  Pennsylvanians  of  the 
38th  took  Chatel-Chehery,  the  ist  was  due  to  mark 
time;  and  so  also  was  the  32nd — still  holding  the 
block  of  the  Morine  and  Chene  Sec  woods  and 
withdrawn  from  Gesnes, — which  was  in  turn  de- 
pendent for  further  advance  upon  the  movement  in 
the  Aire  trough.  The  flanks  of  the  two  divisions, 
left  out  of  liaison  as  a  result  of  the  viciously  con- 
fused fighting  of  the  5th,  must  join  up. 

In  the  neighborhood  of  their  junction,  northwest 
of  the  Morine  and  Chene  Sec  woods,  the  highest 
point  was  Hill  269,  in  the  Money  Wood.  To  the 
west    269   looked    across    all    the    hilltops    to    the 

294 


VETERANS  CONTINUE  DRIVING    295 

Argonne  Forest,  and  to  the  east  almost  to  the 
Meuse.  This  distance  of  vision,  it  should  be  ex- 
plained, did  not  mean  observation  of  the  slopes  of 
the  other  hills  or  the  low  ground  at  their  bases. 
Each  hill  which  we  had  conquered  or  had  yet  to 
conquer  on  the  way  to  the  whale-back  was  only  one 
of  an  interlocking  series.  Though  none  approached 
the  spectacular  formidability  of  an  isolated  height 
towering  over  a  surrounding  plain,  Hill  269  was 
relatively  very  important  because  of  its  situation  and 
altitude. 

The  statement  that  the  1st  was  marking  time  on 
the  6th  must  be  qualified  by  the  activity  of  its 
patrols;  for  it  was  not  in  the  nature  or  traditions 
of  the  pioneer  division  ever  to  dig  a  hole  and  sit 
in  it  all  day,  leaving  the  initiative  to  the  enemy.  It 
was  always  hugging  him  close,  ready  to  jump  for 
any  opening  that  offered.  A  patrol  kept  on  going 
until  it  developed  enough  resistance  to  warrant  its 
withdrawal  with  the  information  it  had  gained. 
Also  it  took  responsibility,  and  did  not  wait  on 
orders  if  it  found  an  opportunity  of  turning  a  trick. 
This  seems  an  obvious  system;  but  its  application 
may  vary  in  efficiency  from  experience  to  inexperi- 
ence, from  clumsiness  to  shrewdness,  from  foolish 
bravado  to  courageous  and  resourceful  discretion. 
One  of  the  ist's  patrols,  in  the  course  of  linking  up 
with  the  32nd  on  the   6th,   kept  feeling  its  w?.y 


296  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

through  the  Money  Wood  without  any  opposition 
until  it  came  to  the  top  of  Hill  269.  This  was  in 
the  32nd  Division's  sector;  but  veteran  divisions  do 
not  stand  on  etiquette  on  such  occasions.  They 
know  that  in  the  gamble  of  battle  the  division  which 
lends  a  helping  hand  one  day  may  need  a  helping 
hand  the  next.  In  sending  out  the  patrol,  the 
brigade  commander  had  made  it  small,  as  he  did 
not  want  many  men  killed;  for  he  appreciated  what 
hidden  machine-guns  could  do  to  the  most  agile 
group  of  scouts  when  the  gunners  held  their  fire  for 
a  propitious  moment. 

We  had  caught  the  Germans  napping  on  269. 
The  advantage  we  had  gained  resembled  that  taken 
of  a  fumble  at  football.  Any  "  kid  "  lieutenant  or 
any  one  of  his  men  could  see  as  well  as  General 
Pershing  himself  that  this  crest  was  worth  holding; 
and  that  daring  little  group  held  it  until  relieved 
by  two  companies  of  the  32nd.  Meanwhile  the 
fumble  had  enabled  the  1st  to  take  the  Arietal 
farm,  which  formed  a  natural  rallying  point  for 
enemy  machine-gunners  in  the  ravine  between  the 
Money  and  the  Little  woods  (le  Petit  Bois).  This 
was  an  advantage  for  the  next  attack  second  only 
to  the  occupation  of  269,  with  which  it  had  a  close 
tactical  relation. 

On  the  7th  the   1st,  which  had  been  under  the 
First  Corps,  was  transferred  to  the  Fifth,  and  its 


VETERANS  CONTINUE  DRIVING    297 

front  extended  to  include  Hill  269.  It  was  now 
time  for  the  division  engineers,  who  had  been  work- 
ing night  and  day  on  the  roads,  to  cease  their  idling 
and  begin  fighting.  The  battalion  which  was  sent 
to  take  over  269  from  the  32nd  was  soon  to  find 
what  store  the  Germans  set  by  it,  once  they  realized 
the  blunder  that  had  allowed  it  to  slip  out  of  their 
hands.  The  enemy's  artillery  proceeded  to  make 
this  sharply  defined  cone  a  pillar  of  hell;  but  the 
engineers  were  used  to  digging,  and  they  dug  with 
a  vengeance.  They  were  also  used  to  sticking  on 
the  job.  In  the  face  of  counter-attacks,  supported 
by  a  rain  of  shells  and  bullets  of  artillery  and 
machine-gun  barrages,  they  held  their  ground  in  the 
midst  of  fountains  of  earth  and  flying  debris  and 
frightful  casualties,  with  that  resolution  in  which 
every  man,  no  matter  how  many  of  his  comrades 
are  killed,  determines  that  he  will  not  yield  alive. 

After  the  driving  of  the  wedge  to  Fleville  and 
the  taking  of  Montrefagne,  the  1st  had  been  badly 
shattered.  The  heavy  rains  had  made  the  holding 
of  the  eastern  wall  of  the  Aire  under  the  murder- 
ously accurate  flanking  fire  from  the  western  wall  all 
the  more  horrible.  Transport  was  being  regularly 
shelled;  woods,  where  reserves  might  take  cover, 
were  being  gassed.  Not  only  was  the  doctrine  of 
the  1  st  never  to  yield  ground  taken  upheld  at  every 
point,  but  it  was  continuing  to  improve  its  position 


298  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

on  the  7th  and  8th  while  it  reorganized  its  available 
forces,  steadily  reduced  by  casualties,  in  an  un- 
daunted offensive  spirit. 

The  28th  having  taken  the  Chatel-Chehery 
heights  of  the  opposite  valley  wall,  and  the  82nd 
attacking  the  Cornay  heights,  the  9th  was  chosen 
as  the  day  when  the  hammer  should  again  begin 
pounding  the  wedge  into  the  ramparts  ahead.  By 
this  time  the  1st  had  had  over  5,000  casualties,  rep- 
resenting more  than  one-third  of  its  infantry.  There 
was  an  old  rule  that  when  a  third  of  your  men  were 
out  of  action  it  was  time  for  retreat.  This  had 
ceased  to  apply  in  the  Great  War;  it  was  hardly  a 
view  that  Summerall  would  hold.  The  1st  had  not 
yet  finished  its  task,  and  he  meant  that  it  should  be 
finished.  There  could  be  no  question  of  fatigue,  or 
excuses.  More  engineers  were  summoned  into  line; 
everything  that  veteran  experience  could  arrange 
was  ready.  The  ammunition  supply  and  the  trans- 
port were  up;  the  hospital  service  was  prepared  for 
heavy  casualties.  Every  man's  jaw  was  set  for  a 
final  triumphant  drive  which  should  finally  clear  the 
wall  of  the  Aire. 

The  enemy's  jaw  was  set  too.  He  knew  that  our 
next  rush  would  be  a  desperate  effort  to  reach  the 
main-line  defenses  of  the  whale-back.  Indeed,  this 
was  our  plan,  which  required  that  the  1st  go  about 
a  mile  and  a  half  over  even  more  formidable  ground 


VETERANS  CONTINUE  DRIVING    299 

than  in  the  drive  of  the  4th  and  5th.  On  the  ist's 
right,  Hill  269  in  the  Money  Wood  was  safely  held, 
if  at  a  bloody  cost.  On  the  center  and  right  the' 
Montrefagne  Wood  ran  northeast  in  the  narrow 
tongue  of  the  Little  Wood.  In  this  wood,  about  on 
a  line  with  269,  was  Hill  272,  the  highest  of  all 
the  hills  on  the  ist's  front,  which  we  knew  was 
strongly  held  and  strongly  fortified.  The  Little 
Wood,  broadening  beyond  it,  extended  westward, 
while  the  ravine  between  it  and  the  Money  Wood 
(Hill  269)  wound  in  the  same  direction.  Well 
back  in  this  portion  of  the  Little  Wood  was  Hill 
263,  which  was  at  the  apex  of  a  triangle  with  269 
and  272  as  the  base.  Our  seizure  of  Arietal  farm 
in  the  ravine  before  it  could  be  fortified  enabled  our 
men,  thanks  to  the  protection  from  our  seizure  of 
Hill  269,  to  establish  themselves  on  the  7th  and  8th 
on  the  slopes  of  the  two  other  hills.  Thus  we  were 
saved  from  a  cross-fire  in  having  to  pass  between 
the  two  base  angles  of  the  triangle  toward  the 
apex.  We  could  take  Hill  272,  the  remaining  hill 
at  the  base,  in  flank.  It  was  certainly  good  general- 
ship which  won  this  advantage  for  us,  and  poor  gen- 
eralship which  lost  it  for  the  enemy.  Once  we  had 
Hill  263  at  the  apex,  it  was  downhill  through  the 
Romagne  woods  until  we  were  before  the  Kriem- 
hilde  Stellung,  which  bent  southward  on  the  ist's 
right  in  front  of  the  32nd's  sector.     To  the  west  of 


3oo  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Little  and  Romagne  woods  many  patches  of  woods 
gave  cover  for  machine-guns  on  the  ascents  of  the 
Maldah  ridge,  which  ran  to  the  end  of  the  Aire 
wall  where  the  Aire  bent  sharply  westward  to  the 
gap  of  Grandpre.  However,  the  crux  of  the  prob- 
lem of  the  ist  on  the  9th  was  the  taking  of  Hill 
272  at  the  western  point  of  the  triangle  and  263  at 
the  apex. 

Being  a  gunner,  Summerall  believed  in  making 
the  most  of  gun  power.  He  had  trained  the  artil- 
lery of  the  ist,  and  knew  its  capabilities.  This  im- 
plied anything  but  penuriousness  in  the  expenditure 
of  ammunition.  Throughout  the  7th  and  8th,  day 
and  night,  the  ist's  artillery  had  been  "softening" 
the  defenses  of  these  two  hills  and  of  all  the  other 
positions  with  a  concentrated  bombardment,  and 
placing  ceaseless  interdictory  fire  in  their  rear  to 
keep  them  isolated  from  communication. 

If  ever  infantry  needed  powerful  barrages  to 
protect  its  swift  charges,  it  was  on  the  morning  of 
the  9th.  Any  failure  to  go  home  at  any  point  might 
be  fatal  to  the  whole  movement.  As  supple  as  the 
enemy,  the  ist  was  using  roving,  or  tramp,  guns  to 
counter  his  roving  guns.  The  remainder  of  the  divi- 
sional artillery  was  entirely  concentrated  in  making 
shields  in  turn  for  the  right,  left,  and  center,  which 
advanced  successively  instead  of  at  the  same  time. 
The  weather  as  well  as  the  barrages  was  in  our 


VETERANS  CONTINUE  DRIVING    301 

favor.  A  dense  fog  hid  our  waves  from  the  enemy's 
observation.  His  machine-gunners  in  some  instances 
could  not  see  to  fire  until  our  men  were  upon  them; 
in  others,  as  the  fog  lifted  on  the  exposed  targets, 
our  losses  were  ghastly  without  staying  our  prog- 
ress. 

Apart  from  the  engineers,  the  division  had  only 
one  battalion  of  fresh  infantry  in  reserve.  This 
battalion  was  sent  against  the  highest  of  the  hills, 
272.  Breaking  through  the  fog,  in  bolt  surprise,  it 
took  prisoner  every  man  of  the  garrison  of  272  who 
was  not  killed.  As  the  curtain  of  bursting  shells  of 
the  shield  which  our  men  were  hugging  lifted,  the 
German  lieutenant-colonel  in  command  of  the  hill 
started  out  of  his  dugout,  only  to  see  the  charge 
sweeping  past  its  mouth,  and,  in  turn,  past  all  the 
dugouts  where  his  troops  had  taken  cover  from  the 
approaching  tornado.  He  knew  that  all  was  lost; 
and  he  wept  in  his  humiliation  at  being  captured. 
It  was  the  first  time  that  the  shock  division  to  which 
he  belonged  had  ever  been  on  the  defensive.  He 
paid  a  soldier's  tribute  to  the  power  and  accuracy 
of  the  artillery  fire  of  the  1st,  which  for  two  days 
had  marooned  him,  without  food  for  his  men  and 
unable  to  send  them  orders  or  to  receive  orders 
from  his  superior.  He  had  not  believed  that  in  five 
years  the  Americans  would  have  been  able  to 
develop  such  a  division  as  the   1st;  and  one's  only 


302  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

comment  on  this  is  that  the  men  of  the  ist  were  the 
same  kind  of  men  as  in  the  other  divisions.  He 
had  happened  to  meet  the  ist,  as  any  other  divi- 
sion will  tell  you.  German  officers  who  met  other 
divisions  in  the  Argonne  held  the  same  view  about 
them.  Professional  opinions  from  such  experts 
were  worth  while. 

Our  attack  on  Hill  272  on  the  left  and  our  pos- 
session of  269  on  the  right  protecting  their  flanks, 
the  troops  which  were  making  a  head-on  drive  for 
263  had  an  equally  brilliant  success,  thanks  to  the 
same  thoroughgoing,  enterprising,  and  courageous 
tactics.  Those  on  the  left,  with  the  enemy's  plans 
upset  by  the  loss  of  272  and  263,  wove  their  way 
through  the  patches  of  woods,  conquering  successive 
machine-gun  nests  until  the  Cote  de  Maldah  was 
theirs  in  a  sweep  no  less  important  as  a  part  of  the 
well-arranged  whole,  though  perhaps  less  sensa- 
tional. So  much  for  the  day's  work  of  the  ist  in 
the  high  tide  of  its  career  on  October  9th. 

We  shall  now  take  up  that  of  the  Arrows  of  the 
32nd.  On  the  7th  and  8th  the  32nd  had  been  busy 
sending  out  patrols  and  seeking  to  gain  certain  van- 
tage points  which  would  be  useful  in  the  next  day's 
attack.  It  had  established  itself  in  Gesnes.  Its  own 
artillery  was  now  back  with  the  division,  taking  the 
place  of  that  of  the  30th  Division,  which,  after  its 
exhausting   work   in    forcing  its   guns    through   the 


VETERANS  CONTINUE  DRIVING    303 

Montfaucon  woods  in  support  of  the  37th,  had  still 
remained  in  line  in  support  of  the  32nd.  In  addi- 
tion the  artillery  of  the  42nd,  or  Rainbow,  Division, 
which  was  now  coming  up  in  reserve,  was  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  the  32nd;  for  it  could  not  have  too 
much  gun  power  if  it  were  to  make  any  headway 
on  the  9th.  Nor  could  it  have  too  much  infantry. 
The  18 1st  Brigade  of  the  91st,  Pacific  Coast,  Divi- 
sion had  not  gone  into  rest  when  the  91st  had  been 
"  expended  "  in  the  early  period  of  the  battle.  It 
was  now  placed  in  line  between  the  1st  and  the 
32nd,  and  despite  their  fatigue  the  Pacific  Coast  men 
were  relied  upon  for  nothing  less  than  the  assault 
of  that  Hill  255  whose  galling  fire  had  checked  the 
32nd's  advance  on  the  5th. 

The  "  side-slipping  "  of  the  division  sector  when 
the  1st  relinquished  the  bank  of  the  Aire  and  came 
under  the  administration  of  the  Fifth  Corps  had  not 
given  the  32nd  any  easier  task.  Wasn't  it  a  veteran 
division?  Wasn't  it  used  to  being  expended?  The 
ambition  of  the  Army  command  was  in  the  saddle 
again,  expecting  the  Arrows,  with  the  artillery  of 
two  divisions  in  support,  to  penetrate  immediately 
the  Kriemhilde  Stellung,  or  main  defenses  of  the 
whale-back. 

As  the  Kriemhilde  bent  south  past  the  ist's  flank, 
it  was  within  a  mile  of  the  32nd's  front.  On  the 
32nd's  left  it  was  established  in  the  Valoup  Wood  on 


304  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  ridge  of  the  Cote  Dame  Marie,  a  name  of 
infernal  associations  in  the  history  of  two  veteran 
divisions.  In  the  center  it  passed  in  front  of  the 
town  of  Romagne.  To  the  right  or  east  it  continued 
on  another  ridge  in  the  strong  Mamelle  trench. 
The  plan  was  a  swing  to  the  left  through  Valoup 
Wood  to  take  the  Cote  Dame  Marie,  and  a  swing 
to  the  right  to  take  the  Mamelle  trench,  encircling 
the  village  of  Romagne,  while  the  center  on  the 
Gesnes-Romagne  road  regulated  its  advance  with 
that  of  the  flanks. 

It  might  have  been  carried  out  in  one  day,  as  an 
officer  said,  if  the  32nd  had  had  the  artillery  of  five 
or  six  divisions  and  a  score  of  heavy  batteries  from 
the  French,  while  the  men  had  been  provided  with 
shell-  and  bullet-proof  armor.  This  heroic  dream 
is  mentioned  in  passing.  More  to  the  point  is  what 
the  men  of  the  32nd  accomplished;  for  they  almost 
made  the  dream  come  true  before  darkness  fell  on 
the  night  of  October  9th.  They  were  the  Arrows 
indeed — an  arrow  on  the  right  and  on  the  left — 
with  the  bow  of  determination  drawn  taut  before 
the  attacks  were  released.  That  on  the  left  pene- 
trated the  Dame  Marie,  while  the  right  penetrated 
the  Mamelle  trench  where  the  meager  numbers 
which  formed  the  very  tip  of  the  arrow-head  were 
stopped  in  a  bout  of  hand-to-hand  fighting,  while 
their  comrades  on  the  right  and  left  were  held  up 


VETERANS  CONTINUE  DRIVING    305 

by  the  wire  and  the  relentlessly  increasing  machine- 
gun  fire.  The  center  could  not  advance.  Romagne 
was  not  encircled. 

Trje  1 8 1st  Brigade  of  the  91st  had  orders  to  hold  M 
during  the  attack  on  the  9th;  then,  as  standing  still 
appeared  to  be  poor  policy,  it  had  orders  to  assault 
Hill  255,  whose  fire  had  stayed  progress  on  the 
6th.  Later  orders  came  that  the  support  was  un- 
necessary, but  not  until  the  Pacific  Coast  men  were 
already  started  forward,  only  to  have  to  dig  in  in 
face  of  annihilating  fire.  The  next  day,  the  Ger- 
mans now  evacuating  Hill  255  under  the  flanking 
pressure  of  the  1st  and  32nd,  the  Pacific  Coast  men 
mopped  up  the  hill,  captured  the  concrete  block- 
house on  the  reverse  slope,  and  then  set  out  to  mop 
up  the  Tuilerie  farm,  which  was  supposed  to  be 
taken.  Unfortunately  it  was  not  taken.  Between 
them  and  the  farm  was  Hill  288,  the  highest  of  all, 
with  an  outpost  of  the  Kriemhilde  position  in  the 
form  of  a  horse-shoe  organized  in  a  sunken  road 
with  walls  twenty  or  thirty  feet  high.  Tunnels  from 
the  road  allowed  the  machine-gunners  to  play  hide 
and  seek  in  going  and  coming  to  the  slope.  Their 
fire  and  plentiful  gas  and  high-explosive  shells 
checked  the  front  line  about  three  hundred  yards 
south  of  the  hill.  The  next  day  the  brigade  was  to> 
attack  again  in  case  there  were  enough  artillery  fire 
forthcoming  to  "soften"  the  hill;  but  there  was 


306  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

not.  The  Pacific  Coast  men  were  now  relieved  by- 
units  of  the  32nd.  Shivering  for  want  of  woolen 
underwear,  rarely  getting  hot  meals,  their  long 
service  in  the  battle  was  over.  Though  many  were 
ill,  they  refused  to  report  on  the  sick  list  for  fear 
that  they  would  be  transferred  from  hospital  to 
another  division  than  their  own. 

It  was  no  less  a  policy  of  the  Arrows  of  the  32nd 
than  of  the  1st  Division  never  to  yield  gains.  They 
were  at  close  quarters  with  the  Kriemhilde,  and 
they  proposed  to  remain  there.  The  enemy's  fully 
aroused  artillery  and  machine-gun  resistance  to  pro- 
tect the  points  where  the  Kriemhilde  had  been 
entered  prevented  any  headway  on  the  10th  and 
nth,  while  hand-to-hand  fighting  continued  on  the 
Dame  Marie  ridge.  Before  the  32nd  was  to  con- 
quer the  ridge  and  take  Romagne,  it  must  make 
preparation  equal  to  the  task.  This  belongs  to 
another  stage  of  the  battle.  We  are  presently  con- 
cerned with  the  fact  that  the  Arrows  had  done  their 
part  in  the  costly  operation  that  had  conquered  the 
heights  into  which  the  1st  had  driven  its  wedge. 

The  enemy  now  withdrawing  from  the  front  of 
the  1st  across  the  valley  and  low  ground  to  the 
Kriemhilde,  which  was  here  farther  north  than  in 
front  of  the  32nd,  the  1st,  in  a  movement  of  ex- 
ploitation, with  gratefully  few  casualties  made  a 
mile   on   the    10th,   passing   through   the   Romagne 


VETERANS  CONTINUE  DRIVING    307 

Wood  and  beyond  the  village  of  Sommerance.  On 
the  next  day,  feeling  out  the  enemy  positions  with  a 
knowing  hand,  the  veterans  learned  that  they  could 
be  taken  only  by  fresh  troops  in  a  thoroughly  or- 
ganized attack.  The  1st  had  accomplished  its  dar- 
ing mission;  it  had  won  a  telling  victory.  Three- 
fifths  of  its  infantry  was  out  of  action  from  death 
and  wounds;  the  remainder  had  been  fully  "ex- 
pended "  in  exhaustion  or  sickness.  Surely  no 
division  in  all  our  history  had  ever  been  in  finer  con- 
dition for  battle,  or  fought  with  more  discipline  and 
skillful  valor,  or  suffered  more  losses  in  a  single 
action.  "To  be  as  good"  as  the  pioneer  1st  had 
been  the  ambition  of  all  the  divisions  in  the  early 
days  of  our  fighting  in  France.  If  some  became  as 
good,  this  is  the  more  honor  to  them. 

The  affection  of  long  association  creeps  in  as  I 
think  of  the  ist's  first  detachments  arriving  at 
Saint-Nazaire,  or  of  its  pioneer  training  on  the  drill- 
grounds  at  Gondrecourt  in  the  days  when  there  was 
a  fear  in  our  hearts  that  we  might  yet  lose  the  war. 
The  1st  had  confidence  without  boasting,  and  dig- 
nity without  punctiliousness;  its  pride  kept  it  from 
dwelling  on  the  excuses  of  unprotected  flanks;  it  was 
on  good  terms  with  neighboring  divisions  and  with 
the  French :  self-reliant,  systematic,  trying  to  live  up 
to  the  fortune  that  had  made  it  the  first  to  arrive  in 
France  and  was  to  make  it  the  last  to  go  home.    It 


308  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

had  expected  to  pay  a  heavy  price  for  its  crowning 
success;  and  paid  it  with  an  absence  of  grumbling 
which  makes  the  sacrifice  of  life  of  a  transcendent 
nobility,  however  worn  and  filthy  the  khaki  it  wears. 
When  relieved  by  the  42nd  the  1st  withdrew, 
after  casualties  of  8,554,  in  faultlessly  good  order 
from  the  line  of  the  gains  which  it  securely  held. 


XVIII 

THE  GRANDPRE  GAP  IS  OURS 

The  "  Liberty "  Division  trying  to  clear  the  Forest  on  its  own — 
The  battalion  which  refused  to  be  lost — The  "scalloping" 
succeeds — Out  of  the  Forest — The  82nd  across  the  Aire — The 
77th  takes  Saint-Juvin,  though  not  according  to  plan — And 
finally  gets  across  the  Aire  to  Grandpre. 

Its  line  the  breadth  of  the  Argonne  Forest,  no  divi- 
sion could  have  waited  more  impatiently  than  the 
77th  or  "  Liberty "  Division  of  New  York  City 
upon  the  driving  of  the  wedge  on  the  eastern  wall 
of  the  Aire  and  the  clearing  of  the  Aire  trough, 
which,  to  serve  its  purpose,  must  be  accompanied  in 
turn  by  the  progress  of  the  "  scalloping"  movement 
of  the  French  on  their  left.  The  "  Liberty  "  men's 
apprehension  lest  they  might  not  make  the  most  of 
any  advance  on  their  flanks  amounted  to  an  obses- 
sion. If  they  halted,  they  found  that  the  enemy  had 
time  to  cut  openings  in  the  foliage  to  give  his 
machine-guns  fields  of  fire,  string  chicken-wire  be- 
tween trunks  of  trees,  build  elements  of  trenches  on 
the  opposite  slopes  of  gullies,  and  play  other  tricks 
in  the  tangles  of  underbrush.  The  best  way  to  keep 
the  German  out  of  mischief  was  to  keep  him  on 
the  move. 

309 


3io  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

On  the  29th  and  30th  of  September  the  "  Lib- 
erty "  men  had  made  good  advances,  as  we  know. 
In  the  early  days  of  October,  while  there  was  a  lull 
in  the  offensive  on  other  parts  of  our  front,  they 
were  having  a  very  busy  time.  As  the  "  scalloping" 
movement  against  the  escarpments  at  either  edge  of 
the  Forest  was  delayed,  they  would  try  to  do  with- 
out this  elbowing  assistance  on  their  flanks.  As  for 
being  "  expended,"  this  was  out  of  consideration 
while  half  of  the  Forest  was  yet  to  be  taken.  No 
other  division  had  any  rights  in  the  Forest.  It  was 
theirs,  with  the  understanding  that  they  prove  the 
nine  points  of  the  law  by  taking  possession  of  their 
estate.  They  must  keep  on  fighting  until  they  saw 
the  light  of  the  Grandpre  gap  at  the  end  of  its  dark 
reaches.  Such  a  state  of  mind  is  conducive  to  fight- 
ing morale.  There  was  a  personal  property  interest 
at  stake. 

On  the  morning  of  October  2nd,  they  made  a  gen- 
eral attack  of  their  own.  On  the  right  in  the  Naza 
Wood  they  ran  into  a  system  of  detached  trenches 
and  machine-gun  positions  which  were  invisible 
until  the  bullets  began  to  sing  and  hand-grenades 
began  to  fly,  while  their  exposed  flank  left  no  doubt 
that  the  Germans  were  still  in  force  on  the  Taille 
l'Abbe  in  front  of  the  28th.  The  objective  of  the 
left  was  the  Apremont-Binarville  road.  Not  only 
were   the   "  Libertys "   a    "  pushful "    division,   but 


THE  GRANDPRE  GAP  IS  OURS     311 

there  was  never  any  lack  of  pushing  by  their  com- 
mander. The  battalion  on  the  left  was  told  to  keep 
on  going  until  it  reached  the  road,  no  matter  what 
happened  on  its  flanks.  It  obeyed  orders.  After 
it  arrived,  it  found  that  there  were  no  Americans 
on  one  flank  or  French  on  the  other.  Only  Ger- 
mans. No  messages  came  through  from  the 
brigade;  messengers  sent  back  disappeared  in 
the  woods  to  the  rear,  and  fell  into  German 
hands. 

This  was  the  incident  of  the  "  Lost  Battalion." 
Technically,  the  battalion  was  not  lost.  It  knew 
where  it  was  on  the  map.  Practically,  it  was  isolated 
from  the  rest  of  the  division — surrounded,  besieged. 
Whether  they  are  described  as  lost  or  not,  the  men 
of  the  battalion  will  not  soon  forget  their  experi- 
ence. When  they  went  into  action,  they  had  two 
days'  rations.  As  most  of  them  had  eaten  one  day's 
on  the  morning  of  the  3rd,  they  had  the  other  day's 
to  last  them — they  knew  not  how  long.  They  did 
not  have  to  expend  much  energy,  except  on  patrols 
and  outposts.  The  thing  was  to  avoid  drawing  fire 
and  wasting  their  ammunition.  If  they  rose  from 
their  fox-holes,  where  they  were  dug  in  among  the 
roots  of  trees  on  the  northern  slope  of  the  ravine 
below  the  road,  a  spray  of  machine-gun  fire,  or  the 
burst  of  a  shell,  convinced  them  that  sedentary- 
habits  are  best  when  you  are  fasting.     At  the  bot- 


3i2  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

torn  of  the  ravine  was  a  swamp  which  protected 
them  on  that  side,  while  the  crest  of  the  ridge  above 
the  road  protected  them  on  the  other.  Their  pleas- 
antest  diversion  was  watching  shells  which  missed 
their  aim,  harmlessly  throwing  up  fountains  of  mud 
in  the  swamp. 

Some  of  the  shells  were  supposed  to  have  been 
fired  by  the  French,  who  were  said  to  be  under  the 
impression  that  the  battalion  must  have  already 
surrendered.  The  Germans  held  the  view  that  it 
ought  to  surrender,  according  to  rules.  When  they 
sent  in  a  messenger  with  the  suggestion,  supported 
by  the  gratuitous  information  that  the  battalion  was 
hopelessly  surrounded,  it  was  received  not  even 
politely,  let  alone  sympathetically,  by  the  reserve 
major  in  command,  who  had  gone  from  his  law 
office  to  a  training  camp. 

The  major  shaved  every  morning  as  usual.  He 
never  let  the  empty  feeling  in  his  stomach  communi- 
cate itself  to  his  head;  he  was  as  smiling  and  con- 
fident when  he  went  among  his  men  as  if  their  situa- 
tion were  a  part  of  the  routine  of  war.  He  had  dis- 
posed them  skillfully;  they  had  learned  by  experi- 
ence where  to  dig  in  to  escape  fire;  and  they  were 
amazingly  secure,  though  they  were  surrounded.  It 
became  bad  form  to  be  hungry.  When  they  put  out 
panels  to  inform  our  aviators  of  their  location,  the 
panels  only  drew  fire,  and  seem  to  have  failed  in 


THE  GRANDPRE  GAP  IS  OURS     313 

their  object  as  lamentably  as  the  dropping  of  rations 
from  American  planes,  which  probably  the  Germans 
ate. 

Of  course,  the  division  was  making  efforts  to 
reach  the  battalion,  being  stopped  by  machine-gun 
fire.  The  77th  was  fast  held  during  those  five  days. 
Meanwhile  the  1st  had  driven  its  wedge  along  the 
wall  of  the  Aire,  and  on  the  morning  of  the  7th  the 
82nd  had  begun  its  attacks  in  the  valley,  while  the 
French  were  ready  to  move  up  on  the  western  edge 
of  the  Forest.  These  successes,  and  the  disposition 
of  the  77th  to  take  advantage  of  them,  started  the 
retirement  of  the  Germans  in  the  Forest.  On  the 
night  of  the  7th  the  survivors  of  the  lost  battalion 
rose  from  their  fox-holes  as  the  figures  of  Ameri- 
cans came  through  the  darkness  to  their  relief. 
Their  first  thought  was  food.  Then  they  found 
that  they  had  become  heroes.  There  had  been  a 
compelling  appeal  to  the  imagination  in  the  thought 
of  this  band  of  Metropolitans  from  city  streets, 
stoically  holding  their  ground  when  surrounded  by 
German  veterans  in  a  forest  in  France.  They  did 
a  fine  thing,  but  no  finer  than  many  other  battalions 
whose  deeds  attracted  less  public  attention. 

Now,  with  the  forest  edges  being  "  scalloped " 
according  to  the  original  plan,  the  77th  might  carry 
out,  after  two  weeks  of  travail,  its  mission  of 
"  mopping  up  "  as  the  pressure  on  its  flanks  was 


3H  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

relieved.  On  the  8th  it  conquered  the  Naza  posi- 
tions, its  right  coming  up  even  with  the  Taille 
l'Abbe.  The  next  day,  while  the  ist  was  making 
its  second  great  attack,  and  the  82nd  was  again 
attacking  the  Cornay  heights,  while  the  French 
were  rapidly  advancing  on  the  left,  the  77th  swung 
ahead  for  a  mile  and  a  half.  The  Forest  was  now 
to  be  the  77th's  for  the  marching.  The  retiring 
enemy  offered  only  rearguard  action  from  machine- 
guns  and  concentrations  of  shell-fire  on  roads  and 
open  spaces,  which  were  mosquito  bites  after  the 
kind  of  opposition  which  they  had  been  facing.  All 
they  had  to  do  was  to  keep  up  their  supplies  and 
ammunition, — and  that  was  a  good  deal  over  the 
miserable  roads, — and  pick  their  way  through  the 
thickets  and  in  and  out  among  the  tree-trunks, 
across  ravines,  on  to  the  gap  of  Grandpre  at  the 
Forest's  end. 

By  this  time  they  were  at  home  in  woodland 
maneuvers,  or  on  the  10th  they  would  not  have 
made  nearly  four  miles  in  formation,  combing 
every  yard  of  the  Argonne's  breadth  as  they  ad- 
vanced. That  march  showed  a  reserve  of  vitality 
in  the  city  men  worthy  of  the  day  when  the  82nd 
in  the  valley  had  overrun  the  Cornay  heights,  and 
the  ist  and  32nd  had  reached  the  Kriemhilde 
Stellung.  Patrols,  encountering  no  resistance,  came 
out  of  the  Forest  to  see  the  promised  land.    Another 


THE  GRANDPRE  GAP  IS  OURS      315 

stride,  and  the  division  would  be  in  the  open,  facing 
the  gap. 

On  the  northern  bank  of  the  Aire,  about  half  a 
mile  beyond  its  sharp  turn  toward  Grandpre,  is  the 
village  of  Saint- Juvin.  The  river  bottoms  here  are 
broad  and  swampy  between  the  slopes  which  draw 
together  to  form  the  walls  of  the  gap.  From  the 
fronts  of  the  1st  and  32nd  Divisions  the  frag- 
mentary trench  system  of  the  Kriemhilde  ran  north- 
easterly to  a  point  just  opposite  the  bend.  Beyond 
this  to  the  west  the  Germans  depended  upon  the 
westward  course  of  the  river  and  upon  the  naturally 
strong  positions  on  its  northern  side,  culminating  in 
the  heights  above  Grandpre.  The  77th's  sector 
was  extended  slightly  to  the  east  to  include  Saint- 
Juvin,  in  order  that  the  82nd,  which  had  taken  over 
some  of  the  front  of  the  1st,  might  undertake  a 
movement  against  the  Kriemhilde  on  the  ist's  flank 
east  of  the  river  bend,  passing  Saint-Juvin  on  the 
east. 

For  four  days  the  82nd  had  been  throwing  its 
men  into  charges  from  the  river  bottom  against 
heights,  and  wrestling  against  counter-attacks. 
Though  it  had  conquered  the  trough  of  its  north- 
ern course,  the  Aire  river  was  still  the  nightmare 
of  its  evolutions.  The  left  regiment  remained  fac- 
ing the  westward  bend.  The  center  regiment  was 
to  cross  the  northern  course  of  the  river,  south  of 


/ 


3i6  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  bend,  at  Fleville,  and  join  the  right  regiment, 
which  was  already  across.  This  it  did  under  heavy 
fire  on  the  morning  of  the  nth,  and,  deploying, 
swung  west  in  protecting  the  flank  of  the  right  regi- 
ment from  the  heights  north  of  Saint- Juvin. 

The  82nd  had  already  received  enough  shocks  to 
be  called  a  "  stonewall  "  division,  and  had  given 
enough  to  be  called  a  shock  division.  It  was  not 
surprising,  then,  though  wonderful,  that  the  left 
regiment  made  two  miles  in  face  of  the  heights;  or 
that  the  right  regiment  made  a  half  mile  more  and 
by  8  A.M.  had  reached  the  Kriemhilde  Stellung. 
Their  exhaustion,  instead  of  staying  the  All- 
Americas,  appeared  to  give  them  a  delirium  of 
valor.  When  front  lines  were  riddled  by  casualties, 
the  second  line  "  leap-frogged,"  and  charged  on 
into  the  machine-gun  fire.  One  battalion  had  all  its 
commissioned  officers  killed  or  so  badly  wounded 
that  they  could  not  move;  another  all  but  one. 
Non-commissioned  officers  continued  the  attack;  but 
there  was  no  hope  at  present  of  taking  the 
Kriemhilde,  with  its  fresh  waiting  machine-gunners 
in  their  interlocking  positions  supported  by  artillery, 
as  the  32nd  on  the  82nd's  left  had  found.  The 
part  of  it  in  front  of  the  82nd  was  not  to  be  taken 
in  the  general  attack  of  October  14th — not  until 
the  final  drive  of  November  1st.  Exposed  in  a 
salient  under  cross-fire,  the  survivors  of  the  right 


THE  GRANDPRE  GAP  IS  OURS      317 

regiment  were  ordered  to  withdraw  even  with  those 
of  the  center  regiment,  where,  still  under  flanking 
fire  in  face  of  the  heights,  they  held  their  ground. 

Meanwhile  the  left  regiment  was  to  cross  the 
river  westward  of  the  bend,  in  order  to  assail  the 
heights  north  and  northeast  of  Saint-Juvin  which 
commanded  the  village,  and  to  protect  the  flanks  of 
the  other  two  regiments.  The  bridge  near  Saint- 
Juvin  was  down.  A  soldier  going  into  attack  under 
the  weight  of  his  pack  and  220  rounds  of  ammuni- 
tion cannot  swim  a  river.  Patrols  searched  up  and 
down  in  the  darkness  in  vain  for  a  ford.  When  the 
engineers,  who  were  called  in,  started  building  a 
footbridge,  they  were  greeted  by  bursts  of  machine- 
gun  fire  which  suddenly  ceased.  Instantly  the  in- 
fantry rushed  on  to  the  bridge,  which  was  completed 
at  dawn,  the  machine-gun  fire  was  renewed  with 
great  accuracy  and  increased  volume.  Dead  and 
wounded  fell  into  the  water;  survivors  leaped  into 
the  water  and  sprang  up  the  opposite  bank,  facing 
the  unseen  enemy.  Parts  of  two  companies  got 
across,  and  boldly  started  out  to  envelop  Saint- 
Juvin.  After  losses  of  fifty  per  cent  from  annihilat- 
ing machine-gun  fire,  the  little  band  had  to  retreat 
across  the  river;  but  they  had  found  that  there  was 
a  ford  near  the  ruins  of  the  bridge. 

Though   worn   down   until   its   battalions    hardly 
averaged  the  size  of  full  companies,  the  left  regi- 


318  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

ment  was  across  by  the  ford  early  the  next  day,  and 
charging  for  the  heights  northeast  of  Saint-Juvin, 
in  the  first  stages  of  an  action  which  was  to  carry 
on  through  the  general  attack  of  the  14th.  In  order 
to  rid  the  flank  of  machine-gun  fire,  an  officer  led 
his  men  into  the  edge  of  Saint-Juvin  itself,  and  took 
nests  and  prisoners.  The  right  of  the  attack 
reached  the  Ravine  of  Stones,  joining  up  with  the 
center  regiment  in  front  of  the  Kriemhilde.  There, 
in  a  wicked  pocket,  they  stove  off  counter-attacks, 
and  fought  in  and  out  with  the  Germans  in  a  hide- 
and-seek  in  the  treacherous  folds  of  the  slope. 

In  the  general  attack  of  the  14th  the  82nd  was 
once  more  called  upon  to  show  all  the  speed  of  a 
shock  division  fresh  from  rest  in  billets.  Support- 
ing the  42nd  on  its  right,  which  began  its  three  days 
of  terrific  storming  of  the  Chatillon  Ridge,  where 
the  Kriemhilde  bends  southward  in  a  loop,  the  82nd, 
with  its  infantry  effectives  less  than  half  of  normal 
strength,  again  attacked  the  Kriemhilde.  It  actually 
got  through  the  Kriemhilde,  but  again  was  in  a 
salient,  and  after  further  heavy  casualties  had  to 
withdraw.  On  the  left  it  had  swept  over  Hill  182, 
the  commanding  height  to  the  rear  of  Saint-Juvin, 
in  co-operation  with  the  attack  of  the  77th  which 
I  shall  describe.  As  the  Ail-American  division,  the 
82nd  was  prolific  in  personal  exploits.  The  ser- 
geant who  brought  in   129   prisoners,   and  became 


THE  GRANDPRE  GAP  IS  OURS      319 

more  famous  than  the  division  commander,  had  a 
worthy  comrade  in  the  western  "  bronco  buster," 
who,  finding  himself  in  face  of  a  group  of  Ger- 
mans on  Hill  282,  walked  up  to  them,  and,  suddenly 
drawing  his  revolver,  "  took  care  "  of  the  group. 
Then  seeing  a  skirmish  line  of  two  hundred  Ger- 
mans forming,  he  picked  up  a  dead  German's  rifle 
and  shot  the  officer  leading  the  charge,  before  he 
rushed  back  and  brought  up  his  machine-gun  com- 
pany to  repulse  the  attack  with  the  loss  of  half  its 
numbers. 

Of  course,  the  action  of  the  82nd  was  influential 
in  the  fall  of  Saint-Juvin,  which  the  77th,  facing 
the  westward  bend  of  the  river  along  the  entire 
front,  was  to  take  by  a  neat  maneuver,  as  its  part  in 
pressing  the  left  flank  of  the  Germans  in  the  gen- 
eral attack  of  the  14th.  It  was  concluded  that  the 
German,  being  a  creature  of  habit,  had  probably 
arranged  his  barrage  to  protect  Saint-Juvin  from 
attack  from  the  south.  This  was  all  the  more 
likely  against  the  heady  Americans,  who  had  a 
way  in  their  exasperating  energy  of  taking  the  bit 
in  the  teeth  and  driving  straight  through  to  an  ob- 
jective. With  one  battalion  making  a  threat  in 
front,  the  other,  crossing  the  river — which  it  man- 
aged to  do  most  adroitly — from  the  east,  would 
encounter  little  opposition.  The  event  turned  out 
entirely  according  to  anticipation,   except  that  the 


320  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

battalion  which  was  to  make  the  threat  in  front  got 
out  of  hand,  though  in  a  manner  which  was  bound 
to  give  a  thrill  to  their  commander  even  in  his 
technical  reproof. 

After  fighting  two  weeks  in  the  Forest,  the  men 
of  this  battalion  were  feeling  their  oats,  now  that 
they  were  in  the  open.  They  did  not  see  why  the 
battalion  on  the  right  should  have  all  the  honor  and 
excitement  of  taking  Saint-Juvin,  while  they  were 
making  faces  at  it  on  the  side  lines.  Their  eager- 
ness, according  to  the  divisional  report,  turned  the 
threat  into  an  attack,  with  the  result  that  they  suf- 
fered from  the  barrage  which  the  Germans  laid 
down.  At  all  events,  they  lost  eight  officers  killed 
and  twenty  wounded  in  leading  the  men,  who  suf- 
fered in  proportion,  while  the  flanking  battalion, 
with  slight  losses,  entered  the  town  on  the  after- 
noon of  the  14th.  The  garrison  tried  to  escape, 
but  another  little  detail  of  prevision  in  the  77th's 
plan  interfered.  Accordingly  the  retreating  Ger- 
mans ran  into  our  curtain  of  machine-gun  fire  which 
we  laid  down  northwest  of  the  town,  and  were  cap- 
tured. 

After  Chevieres,  a  village  on  the  south  bank  of 
the  river,  was  also  entered,  the  next  nut  to  crack,  the 
town  of  Grandpre  on  the  other  side  of  the  river, 
was  bound  to  be  a  bad  one.  It  was  a  large  town 
for  this  region,  with  a  thousand  inhabitants,  resting 


THE  GRANDPRE  GAP  IS  OURS      321 

against  the  bluff  of  the  tongue  of  ridge  which  shoots 
out  from  the  Bourgogne  wood,  which  is  the  name 
for  the  southern  end  of  the  Boult  Forest.  The 
character  of  this  bluff  and  of  the  "  citadel  "  will  be 
of  more  concern  when  we  come  to  the  thankless  and 
bitter  experience  of  the  78th  Division  in  their  as- 
saults. It  is  sufficient  to  say  now  that  the  bluffs  and 
the  houses  of  the  town  command  the  river  bank  and 
the  narrow  opening  of  the  Aire  valley  to  the  south- 
ernmost projecting  edge  of  the  Argonne  Forest. 
While  the  German  on  the  defensive  had  machine- 
guns  to  spare  for  use  in  this  Gibraltar,  he  would 
apply  the  tactics  in  which  he  was  expert  by  making 
an  attack  on  the  town  pay  a  heavy  price,  at  small 
cost  to  himself.  On  the  nights  of  the  10th  and  the 
nth,  some  patrols  crossed  the  river  and  entered 
Grandpre,  to  meet  with  a  reception  as  hot  as  it  was 
enlightening.  It  was  evident  that  Grandpre  was 
not  to  be  taken  by  a  few  daring  men.  We  must 
cross  in  sufficient  force  to  hold,  and  then  only  when 
at  least  a  portion  of  the  machine-gun  nests  in  the 
town  had  been  silenced.  However,  the  patrols  had 
found  a  ford. 

From  their  heights  on  the  north  bank  of  the 
river  the  Germans  were  covering  all  the  approaches 
to  the  town  with  artillery,  trench-mortar,  and 
machine-gun  fire  clear  to  the  edge  of  the  Argonne. 
Where   we    appeared   in    obvious    avenues    of   ap- 


322  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

proach,  they  brought  down  heavy  barrages.  The 
"  Libertys "  could  not  make  a  move  in  the  open 
without  being  seen;  but  they  kept  on  infiltrating 
forward  with  the  rare  canniness  they  had  learned 
in  fighting  machine-gun  nests  through  underbrush. 
By  the  morning  of  the  15th  they  were  ready 
for  the  final  attack.  All  day  their  artillery  was 
pounding  the  town  and  approaches.  All  day  they 
were  maneuvering  and  advancing  as  they  held  the 
enemy's  attention,  until  at  dusk  a  detachment  rushed 
the  ford  and  entered  the  town.  Other  detachments 
built  boat-bridges,  and  swam  the  river  in  the  dark 
to  add  their  numbers  in  making  sure  that  we  held 
what  we  had  gained.  All  night  plunging  fire  from 
the  bluffs  continued,  and  raking  fire  from  the  houses 
swept  the  streets,  while  the  western  and  northern 
edges  of  the  town  were  being  organized  to  turn 
over  to  the  78th  Division. 

Both  river  banks  were  ours;  we  had  the  gap,  if 
not  the  citadel  or  the  bluffs  or  all  the  buildings  in 
the  town,  on  the  same  day,  it  happened,  that  the 
British  were  at  the  gates  of  Lille.  For  nearly  three 
weeks  the  "  Libertys  "  had  been  in  action.  For  all 
but  five  days  of  that  time,  they  had  been  in  the  damp 
woods  out  of  sight  of  the  sun.  In  its  taking  of  the 
Forest  and  of  Grandpre  and  Saint-Juvin,  and  its 
subsequent  advance  to  the  Meuse  after  it  came  into 
line  for  a  second  time,  the  77th  had  4,832  casual- 


THE  GRANDPRE  GAP  IS  OURS     323 

ties,  and  captured  720  prisoners,  3,200  rifles,  and 
pieces  of  heavy  and  16  of  light  artillery.  Even 
now,  when  they  were  to  have  a  holiday,  they 
were  not  to  leave  the  Forest  which  their  valor 
had  won,  but  to  settle  down  in  the  comfortable 
rest  camps  in  its  recesses — much  better  than  the 
roofless  and  torn  walls  of  villages — which  the 
enemy  had  built  in  the  days  when  he  thought  that 
he  had  permanently  occupied  this  part  of  France, 
and  when  no  Prussian  of  the  Landwehr  or  a  shock 
division  ever  dreamed  of  being  dispossessed  by 
draft  men  of  New  York  City,  who  at  that  time  had 
never  had  a  rifle  in  their  hands. 


XIX 


ANOTHER  WEDGE 

The  Marne  Division — A  wedge  in  the  east  over  open  ridges — 
Magnificent,  but  not  war — A  footing  in  the  Mamelle  trench 
— Blue  Ridge  men  hammering  a  way  into  the  Ogons  Wood — 
And  into  the  Mamelle  trench — A  still  hunt  in  a  German  head- 
quarters— The  dead  line  of  the  Brieulles  road. 

Our  First  Corps  was  still  on  the  left,  with  the 
trough  of  the  Aire  now  behind  it.  Our  Fifth  Corps, 
including  the  ist  Division  after  its  transfer  from 
the  First,  was  still  in  the  center,  and  our  Third 
Corps  in  the  yet  unconquered  trough  of  the  Meuse 
on  the  right.  Departing  from  the  arbitrary  lines 
of  the  Corps,  in  following  the  movement  for  the 
conquest  of  the  Forest  and  of  the  trough  and  the 
walls  of  the  Aire  to  its  conclusion,  no  mention  was 
made  of  the  other  divisions  from  the  flank  of  the 
32nd  to  the  Meuse.  All  had  been  attacking  with 
the  same  vigor  as  those  to  the  left. 

On  October  ist  the  3rd  Division,  under  Major- 
General  Beaumont  B.  Buck,  had  relieved  the  79th, 
going  in  beside  the  32nd.  Its  part  is  given  sepa- 
rately from  that  of  the  32nd,  which  was  in  the 
same,  or  Fifth  Corps,  because  it  was  also  to  drive 
a  wedge  in  the  general  attack  of  October  4th.     Be 

324 


ANOTHER  WEDGE  325 

it  the  1st  or  2nd,  or  the  4th  or  5th,  the  3rd  consid- 
ered itself  the  peer  of  any  regular  division.  It  had 
become  veteran  without  any  trench  service  when  it 
hurried  to  Chateau-Thierry  to  its  baptism  of  fire, 
in  the  crisis  of  the  third  German  offensive  of  the 
spring.  I  have  described  in  my  first  book  how, 
flanks  exposed,  it  "stonewalled"  on  the  Marne's 
bank  against  the  fifth  German  offensive;  and  how, 
then  swiftly  crossing  the  Marne,  it  had  joined  our 
other  divisions  in  the  advance  to  the  Vesle.  Though 
its  emblem  was  three  white  stripes  on  a  blue  field, 
indicating  its  three  battles,  it  was  sometimes  called 
the  Marne  Division.  The  reputation  for  unflinch- 
ing endurance  and  bold  initiative  which  it  had  won 
was  now  to  be  further  enhanced  in  an  action  whose 
toll  of  casualties  was  second — and  then  by  only  one 
hundred — to  that  of  the  1st,  which  drove  the  wedge1 
along  the  Aire. 

Having  come  from  Saint-Mihiel,  its  replacements 
absorbed  in  its  ways,  its  units  all  fresh  and  trained 
in  cooperation,  it  marched  along  the  road  through 
Montfaucon  which  was  ever  under  shell-fire,  and 
down  the  slopes  in  face  of  the  guns  of  the  whale- 
back,  following  the  path  where  the  79th  had  "  ex- 
pended "  itself,  with  the  spring  of  youth  in  its  steps 
and  confidence  in  the  heart-beat  of  every  man. 
Such  was  its  pride  and  spirit  that  one  would  say 
that  anything  that  this  division  could  not  do  no  other 


326  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

division  could  do.  Judging  by  the  sector  and  the 
mission  to  which  it  was  assigned,  this  was  also  the 
view  of  the  Army  command. 

The  line  which  it  took  over  from  Nantillois  to 
the  Beuge  Wood  was  exposed  to  continual  harassing 
fire.  Before  it  were  three  bare  irregular  ridges, 
surmounted  by  commanding  hills,  with  woods  on 
the  right  flank.  On  the  last  of  the  three  was  the 
Mamelle  trench,  a  part  of  the  Kriemhilde  Stellung. 
Army  ambition,  fondly  contemplating  the  freshness 
and  efficiency  of  the  3rd,  saw  it  driving  over  those 
bare  ridges,  all  the  while  under  the  guns  of  the 
whale-back,  past  flanking  machine-gun  fire  from  the 
wooded  Hill  250  and  Cunel  Wood  on  the  right. 
Piercing  the  Mamelle  trench,  it  was  to  sink  its 
wedge  into  the  right  flank  of  the  whale-back,  while 
the  wedge  of  the  1st  was  sunk  into  the  left  flank. 
It  was  the  precept  of  the  Army  that  if  you  did  not 
order  a  thing  it  would  not  be  delivered.  One  never 
could  tell.  The  3rd  might  do  a  miracle.  It  had 
done  something  like  a  miracle  on  the  banks  of  the 
Marne.  The  better  a  division  was,  the  more  was 
expected  of  it:  which  is  only  logical  and  human. 

The  open  ground  on  the  front  was  excellently 
suited  for  tanks.  Forty  or  fifty  would  have  ap- 
proached a  theoretically  adequate  number  for  the 
division's  part  in  the  general  attack  on  October  4th. 
Unfortunately  our  troops  had  had  little  training  in 


ANOTHER  WEDGE  327 

maneuvers  with  tanks,  and  the  few  which  the  French 
were  able  to  spare  for  the  3rd  were  of  relatively- 
little  service.  For  its  artillery  support,  the  3rd  had, 
beside  its  own  brigade,  that  of  the  32nd.  This 
appeared  quite  generous  on  paper — but  not  in  sight 
of  those  ridges.  Their  crests  should  have  been  rup- 
tured by  the  high-explosive  bursts  of  half  a  dozen 
regiments  of  heavy  artillery,  and  received  a  shower- 
bath  of  shrapnel  from  half  a  dozen  regiments  of 
field  artillery.  However,  there  was  the  infantry — • 
we  could  depend  upon  the  "  doughboys  "  even  if  we 
were  short  of  artillery. 

As  a  substitute  for  natural  cover,  a  smoke-screen 
was  helpful  in  obscuring  the  aim  of  the  enemy's 
machine-gunners  as  the  charge  ascended  the  exposed 
slope  of  the  first  ridge.  This  was  taken  in  the  morn- 
ing under  the  cross-fire  from  Hill  250,  which  had 
resisted  the  attack  on  the  right,  while  the  enemy 
artillery  fire  from  the  whale-back  searched  the  whole 
field  of  the  advance.  The  dependable  infantry, 
closing  up  the  gaps  in  ranks  torn  by  shell-fire,  sway- 
ing, re-forming,  and  rushing  on,  had  accomplished 
this  much;  but  there  were  the  machine-guns  from 
250  sweeping  the  flank  of  the  line  on  the  ridge.  The 
artillery  was  asked  to  pound  250;  it  did  its  best  to 
answer  this  while  it  was  answering  other  pressing 
calls.  An  effort  to  encircle  250  while  it  was  being 
shelled  was  blasted  back.     No  matter  about  250; 


328 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


there  was  yet  the  second  ridge  to  be  taken;  and  the 
afternoon  was  young.  Before  nightfall  the  men  of 
the  3rd  had  reached  its  reverse  slope,  and  were  dig- 
ging in  under  shell-fire,  while  they  received  machine- 
gun  fire  not  only  from  250  but  from  Cunel  Wood, 
which  was  now  in  flank  of  their  advance.  The 
Cunel  was  a  small  wood,  but  it  was  large  enough 
for  a  host  of  machine-guns,  and  could  not  have  been 
better  placed  for  the  German  purpose. 

The  next  morning,  October  5th,  under  artillery 
support,  the  men  of  the  3rd  tried  infiltration  over 
the  crest  of  the  second  ridge  by  all  the  tactics  known 
to  veterans.     Apart  from  ample  machine-guns  and 
infantry  in  the  trenches,  the  Germans  had  two  field 
guns  on  the   ridge,   firing   at  point-blank   range   in 
directions   where   they   would  be   of   most   service. 
Infiltration  would  not  do.     There  must  be  artillery 
preparation,  then  a  sweep  over  the  crest  behind  the 
shield  of  a  strong  barrage.     During  the  organiza- 
tion of  this  attack,  there  was  no  lull  in  the  bitter 
and  stubborn  fighting.     If  lines  became  disarranged, 
there  was  no  demoralization.     The  Marne  division 
was  second  to  no  division.     It  meant  to  go  through. 
The  Cunel  Wood  must  be  cleaned  up  as  a  part  of 
the  program  of  taking  the  second  ridge.     A  line  of 
men,    crouching,    methodical,    bayonets    glistening, 
started  across  the  open  against  the  wood,  and  melted 
away  in  face  of  the  spitting  of  the  machine-guns. 


ANOTHER  WEDGE  329 

Unflinchingly  another  line  advanced,  and  still 
another,  and  they  too  melted  away  under  that 
blaze  from  the  wood's  edge.  Artillery  preparation 
for  the  assault  of  the  second  ridge  at  5  P.M.  had 
included  the  Mamelle  trench  on  the  third  ridge, 
where  the  Germans  were  known  to  be  in  strong 
force.  The  crest  of  the  second  ridge  was  gained. 
One  company,  targets  against  the  slope  for  shells 
and  machine-gun  bullets,  kept  on  until  it  reached  the 
little  Moussin  brook  in  the  valley.  The  German 
machine-gunners  had  this  perfectly  registered  under 
an  aim  that  swept  the  reverse  slope.  If  the  com- 
pany had  continued  advancing,  any  survivor  who 
reached  the  Mamelle  trench  would  have  been  taken 
prisoner.  That  night  the  machine-guns  on  250 
were  mopped  up,  which  removed  one  source  of  as- 
sassination in  flank.  The  3rd  was  not  keeping  up 
with  the  lines  drawn  for  it  on  the  map,  but  it  was 
making  gains  and  holding  them. 

Fatigue  and  the  drain  from  casualties  were  begin- 
ning to  tell.  It  was  evident  from  the  number  of 
Germans  and  machine-guns  in  the  Mamelle  trench 
that  the  enemy  meant  to  fight  desperately  for  its 
retention.  There  was  no  storming  it  without 
thorough  artillery  preparation  until  something  was 
done  to  take  care  of  Cunel  Wood  on  the  flank.  In 
conjunction  with  the  80th  on  its  right,  the  3rd  again 
charged  Cunel's  machine-gun  nests.     They  made  an 


330 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


entrance,  only  to  find  that  the  depths  of  the  wood 
were  plotted  with  machine-gun  nests  which  began 
firing  when  the  edge  was  taken.  After  the  repulse 
of  the  main  attack,  a  sergeant  and  twenty  men  of 
the  3rd  stuck  to  their  fox-holes.  The  following  day 
they  were  able  to  withdraw  in  small  groups.  Mean- 
while defensive  positions  were  being  organized  on 
the  second  ridge.  It  was  not  a  solacing  fact  to  have 
the  32nd  Division's  artillery  withdrawn  at  this 
juncture.  In  its  place  came  a  smaller  force  of 
French,  who  were  welcome,  but  would  have  been 
more  welcome  if  they  had  had  more  guns;  but  the 
British,  the  French,  the  Americans,  and  the  Bel- 
gians, too,  were  using  every  available  gun  in  the 
general  offensive  movement. 

On  the  7th  and  8th  the  3rd  remained  dug  in,  pre- 
paring for  the  general  attack  of  the  9th  which  on 
the  Army's  left  was  to  free  the  Aire  valley.  That 
day  the  objective  was  to  take  the  Mamelle  trench 
and  pass  on  through  to  the  Pultiere  Wood.  Mean- 
while on  the  8th  there  had  been  remorselessly  close 
quarters  work  in  attacks  and  counter-attacks  in  try- 
ing to  take  Hill  253  on  the  left,  with  the  result  that 
the  end  of  the  day  left  the  two  lines  about  seventy- 
five  yards  apart  on  the  slope.  Starting  from  the 
valley  of  the  Moussin  brook  on  the  9th,  we  swept 
into  the  Mamelle,  overran  it  in  places,  lost  parts  of 
it,  held  other  parts  as  the  contest  swayed  back  and 


ANOTHER  WEDGE  331 

forth.  On  the  10th  it  was  hammer-and-tongs  again, 
as  we  made  further  gains  supported  by  barrages, 
only  to  find  as  the  barrage  lifted  that  the  guns  from 
the  whale-back  were  bursting  shells  on  our  heads, — 
and  units  were  again  in  salients  of  interlocking 
machine-gun  fire.  The  advantage  gained  was  not  in 
distance,  but  in  cleaning  up  some  of  the  machine- 
gun  nests,  which  allowed  us  to  hold  on  to  more  of 
the  Mamelle.  The  nth  was  a  repetition  of  the 
same  ferocity  of  initiative  and  resistance  in  the  same 
kind  of  wrestle.  It  had  been  a  test  of  endurance 
in  sleepless  effort  between  the  men  of  the  3rd  and 
the  Germans,  and  the  grit  of  the  3rd  had  won. 

All  this  time  the  80th  on  the  left,  which  was 
swinging  past  the  trench,  was  suffering  from  flank- 
ing fire  from  the  machine-guns  which  the  3rd  was 
trying  to  overcome.  On  the  night  of  the  12th,  the 
3rd  relieved  units  of  the  80th,  extending  its  sector. 
This  frequent  realignment  in  divisional  sectors  only 
made  more  difficult  the  repeated  re-forming  of  the 
lines  within  the  sector  due  to  set-backs  and  casual- 
ties. The  next  day  the  elements  of  the  3rd  which 
had  taken  over  in  the  Peut  de  Faux  Wood  found 
themselves,  after  a  terrific  outburst  of  shell-fire, 
facing  a  strong  German  counter-attack.  They  had 
resisted  German  attacks  before  this  on  the  Marne. 
At  one  point  they  withdrew  from  the  line  of  the 
barrage;  but   when   the   barrage   lifted,    and   they 


332  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

looked  the  enemy  infantry  in  the  eye  at  close 
quarters,  they  never  budged. 

There  may  have  been  faults  in  the  command  of 
the  3rd  in  this  baffling  problem  of  tactics  on  open 
slopes  and  ridges  where  communications  were  under 
the  fire  of  artillery  from  both  the  whale-back  and 
the  heights  across  the  Meuse,  but  there  was  no  fault 
in  the  dependable  infantry.  Here,  as  along  the  rest 
of  the  front  in  the  middle  of  October,  we  were 
learning  that  the  enemy,  having  lost  advantageous 
ground  in  the  defense  of  the  whale-back,  was  to  hold 
the  final  heights  with  all  the  more  stubbornness.  In 
the  successes  from  October  4th  to  nth  the  3rd  had 
won  one  of  the  most  conspicuous.  After  two  weeks 
in  line  its  endurance  was  not  exhausted.  It  was  now 
to  begin  preparing  for  the  general  attack  of  October 
14th,  which  is  another  phase  of  the  battle. 

Support  on  its  right  flank,  which  had  been  essen- 
tial to  its  progress,  had  been  given  by  the  peripatetic 
Blue  Ridge  men.  The  veterans  of  Stonewall  Jack- 
son's flying  columns  would  have  felt  at  home  in  the 
80th  Division.  We  know  how  well  it  had  fought 
for  three  days  in  the  initial  attack  that  broke  the 
old  fortifications.  On  September  28th,  when  the 
80th  had  been  "squeezed  out"  of  the  narrowing 
Third  Corps  sector,  its  artillery  and  one  infantry 
regiment  had  also  remained  in  the  fighting  with  the 
4th  Division,  while  the  three  other  regiments  had 


ANOTHER  WEDGE  333 

been  marched  around  to  be  in  readiness  to  assist  the 
37th  in  repelling  a  counter-attack  against  the  Mont- 
faucon  woods.  Now  the  Blue  Ridge  men  were  re- 
turned to  become  the  left  flank  of  the  Third  Corps 
on  familiar  ground.  For  such  rapid  travelers 
Army  ambition  had  set  a  no  less  rapid  pace  on  the 
map  than  for  the  3rd.  They  were  to  keep  on  driv- 
ing until  they  were  through  the  Kriemhilde  Stellung 
between  Cunel  and  the  Meuse.  It  was  not  fair  to 
call  them  a  fresh  division,  unless  hard  fighting  and 
hard  marching  were  counted  a  warming-up  exercise, 
and  going  without  sleep  a  tonic. 

The  first  of  the  many  hurdles  in  the  steeple-chase 
planned  for  them  was  the  Ogons  Wood,  whose 
machine-guns  had  shattered  the  attacks  of  the  79th 
on  September  29th;  but  this  was  ancient  history  in 
a  battle  whose  processes  were  so  swift.  It  happened 
six  days  ago.  We  were  in  a  new  era;  we  were  mak- 
ing another  general  attack  as  powerful  as  that  of 
September  26th.  The  clock  had  run  down  on  Sep- 
tember 29th;  it  was  wound  up  again  by  the  4th.  The 
80th  had  only  to  repeat  its  own  successes  in  the  first 
three  days  of  the  battle,  and  it  was  in  Cunel.  The 
staff  must  always  talk  in  this  encouraging  fashion; 
but  there  was  no  reason  to  believe  that  there  were 
fewer  machine-guns  in  the  Ogons  Wood  than  when 
the  79th  had  been  repulsed.  Possibly  their  number 
had  been  increased  during  the  stalemate  period  from 


334  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

September  29th  to  October  4th.  There  was  one 
way  of  finding  out — by  sending  a  wave  of  human 
targets  over  those  open  slopes  toward  the  wood's 
edge. 

The  machine-guns  began  firing  with  the  me- 
chanical regularity  of  a  knitting  machine,  instantly 
the  attack  began.  The  Blue  Ridge  men  were  not 
surprised  at  this,  or  at  receiving  high-explosive 
shells  from  two  directions.  If  they  had  not  known 
from  their  own  previous  experience,  the  men  of  the 
long-suffering  4th  Division  on  their  right  could  have 
told  them  that  once  they  were  in  the  woods  the 
German  gunners  would  be  slipping  gas  shells  into 
their  gun  tubes  in  place  of  the  H.  E.'s  used  against 
them  in  the  open.  It  was  the  quantity  of  shells  and 
bullets  that  was  unexpected.  The  enemy  shell-bursts 
were  keeping  pace  with  them  as  automatically  as 
their  own  barrages,  and  beyond  their  own  barrage 
the  enemy  was  laying  down  a  stationary  barrage 
awaiting  their  advance.  Machine-gun  fire  increased 
with  every  step. 

There  was  no  continuing  against  such  a  shower 
of  projectiles  and  hissing  of  bullets.  A  halt  was 
called.  A  battalion  of  reserves  was  brought  up 
while  the  artillery  was  told  where  to  concentrate 
its  fire;  separated  units  were  brought  together, 
re-formed  on  a  new  line;  tanks  came  up  on  the  left 
to  assist  in  the  second  charge  at  5.30  P.M.;  but  the 


ANOTHER  WEDGE  33s 

enemy  had  only  held  his  fire,  waiting  for  the  second 
charge  to  start.  It  came  nearer  the  Ogons,  but  when 
darkness  fell  the  Blue  Ridge  men  were  still  lying 
in  the  open,  south  of  the  wood,  the  enemy's  guns 
still  keeping  up  an  intermittent  galling  fire,  which 
was  falling  alike  on  the  dead  and  the  wounded  and 
the  survivors.  Patrols  filtered  into  the  woods  dur- 
ing the  night — and  the  Blue  Ridge  men  had  a  gift 
for  such  work — only  to  learn  that  a  few  enterprising 
scouts,  in  their  stealthy  crawling,  if  they  wished  to 
escape  massacre  or  being  taken  prisoner,  had  to 
avoid  drawing  fire. 

Attack  again !  Keep  on  trying !  The  next  morn- 
ing all  the  machine-guns  were  ordered  up  to  send  a 
barrage  of  bullets  over  the  heads  of  the  charge  into 
the  edge  of  the  woods.  This  had  been  efficacious 
on  other  occasions,  but  it  was  not  this  time,  as  the 
infantry  knew  instantly  they  rose  to  advance,  when 
the  deadly  refrain  from  the  edge  of  the  woods 
showed  no  more  diminution  than  the  wrath  of  the 
guns  from  the  heights.  Ground  was  gained  in 
places  between  the  swaths  of  the  machine-guns' 
mowing;  but  no  part  of  the  line  penetrated  the 
woods,  though  it  was  close  to  the  woods  when  it 
was  stopped.  Attack  again!  Keep  on  trying!  The 
enemy  will  break  if  you  try  hard  enough!  The 
wedge  must  be  driven,  whether  through  woods,  over 
slopes,  or  through  trenches.     Again  reorganization; 


336 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


again  the  line  re-formed  to  make  the  most  of  gains ; 
again  the  artillery  ordered  to  concentrate  on  the 
woods  for  an  attack  at  6  p.m.  This  time  the  jump- 
ing-off  place  was  so  near  the  woods,  that  the  Ger- 
mans, when  the  barrage  descended  upon  them,  were 
as  a  rule  disinclined  to  wait  for  the  charge.  Many 
who  remained  held  up  their  hands.  The  men  felt 
relief  at  being  at  last  no  longer  a  target  in  the  open 
as  they  made  swift  work  of  mopping  up  the  whole 
of  the  Ogons. 

The  next  day,  the  6th,  the  divisional  artillery  as- 
sisted the  3rd  in  its  efforts  for  the  Mamelle 
trench.  Patrols  trying  to  reach  the  trenches  north 
of  the  Ogons — which  incidentally  was  being  gassed 
— ran  into  an  array  of  machine-gun  nests,  and 
brought  back  information  about  what  was  in  store 
for  the  next  attack;  for  the  German,  as  we  know, 
was  much  in  earnest  on  the  east  flank  of  the  whale- 
back.  On  the  night  of  the  6th  the  brigade  which 
had  been  in  front  during  these  two  days  was  relieved 
by  the  brigade  in  reserve.  On  the  7th  and  8th,  while 
there  was  more  or  less  of  a  lull  in  the  battle  every- 
where except  in  the  Aire  valley  and  the  Argonne, 
the  80th  was  busy  with  patrols,  locating  enemy  pill- 
boxes for  the  information  of  the  artillery,  and  pre- 
paring for  its  part  in  the  general  attack  of  the  9th 
all  along  the  line — the  attack  that  brought  us  up  to 
the  main  line  of  defenses  at  many  points — the  third 


ANOTHER  WEDGE  337 

great  attack  of  the  battle.  September  26th,  Octo- 
ber 4th,  and  October  9th  are  the  three  dates. 

The  80th  did  not  start  at  daylight,  the  same  hour 
as  the  3rd  on  its  left.  Its  thrust  waited  on  the 
advance  of  the  3rd  to  a  certain  point.  At  3.15  the 
word  came  for  the  80th  to  attack.  After  fifteen 
minutes  of  furious  artillery,  the  first  wave  rose  and 
moved  forward  in  face  of  the  machine-guns,  while 
the  enemy  brought  down  a  curtain  of  shell-fire  in 
front  of  the  second  wave  when  it  rose,  in  order  to 
keep  it  from  supporting  the  first,  whose  ranks  were 
being  rapidly  thinned;  but  all  the  powers  of  destruc- 
tion which  the  enemy  could  bring  to  bear  could  not 
stay  the  men  of  the  fresh  brigade  in  their  hard-won 
stages  of  progress,  now  that  the  slopes  and  the 
Ogons  were  at  their  back.  They  took  the  strong 
point  of  the  Ville-aux-Bois  farm,  and  still  going 
after  dark  they  reached  the  Cunel-Brieulles  road. 

There  was  a  familiar  sound  to  that  word 
Brieulles.  The  80th  on  September  28th  had  at- 
tacked the  hills  in  front  of  this  town  at  the  bend  in 
the  river.  Brieulles  was  still  in  the  enemy's  hands, 
but  the  village  of  Cunel  was  ahead  in  the  dark  night. 
There  must  be  numerous  Germans  in  Cunel.  In 
stealthy  audacity  two  companies  of  the  Blue  Ridge 
men  now  turned  a  trick  that  would  have  rejoiced  the 
heart  of  Jeb  Stuart  or  Colonel  Mosby.  They  slipped 
into    Cunel   very   quietly,    and    returned   with   two 


338 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


crestfallen  German  battalion  staffs — thirty  officers 
and  sixty  men — whom  they  had  caught  completely 
by  surprise. 

The  next  morning  the  enemy  had  his  revenge  of 
the  kind  which  his  hidden  long-range  artillery  in  its 
lofty  positions  out  of  reach  of  our  guns  might  take. 
An  attack  was  ordered  for  7  a.m.  As  it  was  form- 
ing, and  the  morning  light  dissipated  the  mist,  the 
watchful  German  observers  were  taking  notes  and 
passing  the  word  to  the  gunners  in  Brieulles  and  in 
the  Rappes  and  Pultiere  woods.  The  minute-hands 
were  near  the  "  H  "  hour  on  wrist  watches,  and  the 
line  ready,  when  a  concentration  of  screams  came 
from  three  directions,  and  geysers  of  earth  and  shell 
fragments  and  gusts  of  shrapnel  had  something  of 
the  effect  of  a  volcanic  fissure  opened  at  the  men's 
feet.  Officers  were  killed  or  thrown  down  by  the 
concussion  in  the  midst  of  their  hasty  directions. 
Two  companies  were  decimated,  two  others  scat- 
tered in  confusion,  by  this  sudden  and  infernal  visita- 
tion ;  but  this  did  not  mean  that  the  Blue  Ridge  men 
were  to  give  up  making  the  attack.  They  re- 
organized and  charged  according  to  orders.  The 
enemy  guns  which  had  caused  such  havoc  in  their 
ranks  disputed  their  advance.  Against  this  whirl- 
wind they  managed  to  go  beyond  the  Brieulles-Cunel 
road,  but  could  not  hold  their  positions.  The  Ger- 
mans made  the  road  a  dead  line,  and  for  days  to 


ANOTHER  WEDGE  339 

come  its  ribbon  was  to  be  the  clear  gray  background 
upon  which  human  targets  were  clearly  visible  to 
their  watchful  gunners.  The  "  pinch-hitting  "  80th 
was  the  only  division  thus  far  that  had  been  twice 
in  the  battle  line  of  the  Meuse-Argonne.  Before  it 
went  in  again,  its  infantry  was  to  have  a  real  rest, 
though  its  artillery,  engineers,  and  ammunition 
train  remained  to  support  the  5  th  Division  which 
took  its  place. 


XX 


IN  THE  MEUSE  TROUGH 


The  bull-dog  4th — Enfilade  shell-fire  from  a  gallery  of  heights — 
Driving  and  holding  a  salient — A  second  try — As  far  as  it 
could  reasonably  go — Reversing  Falkenhayn's  offensive — The 
33rd  builds  bridges — To  cross  and  join  the  Blue  and  Grey 
Division  in  a  surprise  attack — A  bowl  of  hills — The  Borne  de 
Cornouiller  holds  out. 


On  the  8oth's  left  during  the  advance  of  October 
4th-nth  was  the  bull-dog  4th  Division,  under  its 
bull-dog  commander,  Major-General  John  L.  Hines, 
which  had  been  continuously  in  line  since  the  first 
day  of  the  battle.  Hines  had  been  trained  in  the 
school  of  the  pioneer  1st.  When  he  was  with  the 
1st,  he  considered  that  it  was  the  "best"  of  the 
Regular  divisions.  Since  he  had  been  in  command  of 
the  4th,  he  had  changed  his  mind  as  the  result  of 
maturer  judgment  and  more  experience  in  the  field. 
The  4th  was  now  the  "best"  of  the  Regular  divi- 
sions. The  question  of  whether  or  not  it  was  the 
"  best "  of  all  our  divisions,  including  National 
Guard  and  National  Army,  so  enlarges  the  field  of 
rivalry  that  it  must  be  left  to  the  decision  of  divi- 
sional historians. 

No  one  on  the  Army  staff  considered  relieving 

340 


IN  THE  MEUSE  TROUGH  341 

the  4th  before  the  attack  of  October  4th.  If  any 
man  of  the  division  thought  of  relief,  he  knew  that 
the  bull-dogs  might  not  expect  it  when  they  were 
in  a  position  where  the  Army  could  not  afford  to 
allow  them  to  loosen  their  grip  on  the  enemy.  What 
incoming  division  could  familiarize  itself  on  short 
notice  with  that  treacherous  front  in  the  trough 
of  the  Meuse  river,  which  the  4th  knew  by  expe- 
rience? 

Its  right  rested  in  the  woods  on  the  west  bank  of 
the  Meuse,  while  the  German  front  line  was  four 
miles  back  on  the  east  bank  on  its  flank.  Enemy 
machine-guns  had  hiding-places  on  the  banks  not 
only  of  the  river  but  of  the  Meuse  Canal,  which  fol- 
lows the  course  of  the  river.  Beyond  the  river  bot- 
toms, on  the  east  bank,  were  many  patches  of  woods 
on  the  first  slopes,  which  brought  field  artillery 
within  range  of  the  4th's  front,  while  the  heavy  artil- 
lery in  the  ravines  and  woods  around  the  Borne  de 
Cornouiller,  or  Hill  378,  was  also  in  range.  To 
this  quite  gratuitous  bombardment,  entirely  out  of 
our  own  battle  zone,  from  the  eastern  gallery  upon 
the  pit  of  the  amphitheater  of  the  4th's  action,  we 
had  no  means  of  replying.  It  must  be  accepted  with 
the  same  philosophy  as  an  earthquake  or  any  other 
violence  of  nature.  In  front  of  the  4th's  right  flank 
was  the  town  of  Brieulles  in  the  river  bend,  which 
held  batteries  of  field  guns,  its  surrounding  swamps 


342  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

defended  by  machine-gun  nests  giving  it  the  char- 
acter of  a  fortress  with  a  moat.  To  the  left  of  it 
was  the  Fays  Wood,  facing  more  open  ground,  and 
back  of  that  the  frontal  gallery  of  heights  holding 
still  more  artillery,  while  on  their  left  was  the  gal- 
lery of  the  whale-back. 

Campaigners  who  have  been  for  a  long  time 
sleeping  on  doors  and  the  hard  ground,  when  they 
try  a  bed  again  find,  as  I  found  on  one  occasion,  that 
it  is  so  unnaturally  soft  that  they  lie  down  on  the 
floor  before  they  can  sleep.  The  men  of  the  4th  had 
become  so  accustomed  to  enfilade  shell-fire  that  they 
would  hardly  have  felt  at  home  without  it.  If  they 
had  been  receiving  shells  from  the  rear  as  well  as 
from  front  and  flank,  I  think  that  General  Hines 
would  only  have  set  his  jaw  the  harder,  and  his  bull- 
dogs would  have  said:  "We  thought  we'd  be  hear- 
ing from  you.  Now  we  know  the  worst.  But  you 
can't  make  us  let  go."  When  they  took  a  piece  of 
woods  from  the  Germans,  it  was  immediately 
gassed.  Some  of  them  thought  little  more  of  put- 
ting on  their  gas  masks  than  a  baseball  player  of 
putting  on  his  mitt.  Already  a  veteran  division 
when  they  came  into  line,  they  had  taken  an  excoriat- 
ing course  in  practical  warfare  which  made  their  pre- 
vious experience  comparatively  that  of  a  grammar 
school.  There  could  be  nothing  new  in  store  for 
them  in  the  attack  on  October  4th.;  they  could  be 


IN  THE  MEUSE  TROUGH  343 

under  none  of  the  illusions  of  fresh  troops  in  their 
first  plunge  into  the  cauldron. 

Army  ambition  chose  to  make  them  another 
wedge — we  were  falling  into  the  habit  of  wedges  as 
the  only  means  to  progress — which  was  to  take  the 
Fays  Wood;  then  the  Forest  Wood  (Bois  de  Foret) , 
by  crossing  open  ground  under  the  enfilade  of 
Brieulles  and  all  the  guns  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Meuse.  This  may  have  seemed  a  reasonable  mis- 
sion for  them,  as  they  were  already  so  hardened  to 
flanking  fire.  Indeed  the  flank  of  this  division  was 
exposed  in  its  drive  down  the  Meuse  valley  in  much 
the  same  way  as  the  ist's  on  the  Aire  wall,  with  the 
difference  that  its  right  carried  down  the  slopes  fall- 
ing toward  the  river  in  plain  view  of  the  heights  on 
the  other  side. 

The  4th  could  be  trusted  to  do  not  only  its 
valorous  but  its  professional  best.  In  view  of  the 
galleries  of  guns  overlooking  the  sector,  it  seems 
superfluous  to  say  that  it  had  not  enough  artillery 
support.  The  bull-dogs  had  given  up  calling  for 
artillery  assistance.  They  had  been  under  superior 
artillery  fire  so  long  that  they  took  it  for  granted 
that  they  would  have  to  attack  under  support  of  artil- 
lery inferior  to  the  enemy's  when  they  drove  their 
wedge  into  tiers  of  machine-gun  nests;  but  they  had 
in  their  favor  their  amazing  capacity  for  judging 
where  shells  were  going  to  hit  and  taking  cover  be- 


344  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

fore  they  burst,  for  slipping  out  from  under  bar- 
rages without  losing  their  heads,  and  thus  keeping 
their  formations,  and  for  filtering  in  between  con- 
centrations. It  was  amazing  how  many  German 
shells  were  required  to  make  a  casualty  in  the  4th; 
otherwise  there  would  not  have  been  enough  men  of 
the  division  left  for  a  charge  on  the  morning  of 
October  4th,  when  their  waves  went  forward  with 
that  suppleness  of  adaptability  which  is  the  differ- 
ence between  drill-ground  and  veteran  precision. 

Their  line  of  advance  in  the  open  plowed  by 
shells,  they  carried  all  the  machine-gun  nests  in  the 
Fays  Wood,  put  the  wood  behind  them,  and  reached 
the  Cunel-Brieulles  road.  So  they  had  driven  home 
their  wedge,  a  very  sharp-pointed  one.  Their  left 
flank  was  exposed  to  the  Ogons  Wood,  which  the 
80th  could  not  reach  in  its  repeated  charges,  and  to 
the  Cunel  Wood  beyond,  which  the  3rd  had  not 
taken,  and  to  the  guns  of  the  whale-back.  On  their 
immediate  front  they  faced  the  machine-gun  fire 
from  the  western  portion  of  the  Peut  de  Faux  Wood 
on  their  left,  and  on  their  right  from  a  series  of 
trenches  on  a  ridge  which  supported  the  Kriemhilde, 
while  the  increasing  volume  of  fire  on  both  flanks 
emphasized  the  German  intention  to  permit  no  rash 
American  flying  column  to  slip  down  the  river  val- 
ley in  flank  of  the  whale-back.  Thus  the  advance 
was  in  the  narrow  angle  of  a  murderously  sharp 


IN  THE  MEUSE  TROUGH  345 

salient  on  bad  ground.  This  could  not  be  deepened 
into  the  jaws  of  hell;  it  could  not  be  retained  except 
at  a  futile  sacrifice.  The  bull-dogs  could  dodge  shells 
from  across  the  Meuse,  but  they  could  not  dodge  a 
hose  play  of  machine-gun  bullets  coming  from  both 
flanks.  If  they  managed  protection  in  one  direction, 
they  could  not  manage  it  from  the  other.  Skillfully 
making  a  virtue  of  necessity,  they  withdrew  in  the 
night  to  the  line  of  the  Ville-aux-Bois  farm,  where 
they  were  still  in  a  salient,  but  one  which  their  craft 
in  taking  cover  and  their  tenacity  could  hold,  and 
did  hold  against  three  determined  counter-attacks 
under  strong  barrages  against  the  Fays  Wood.  On 
the  9th  the  tactical  plan  required  that  they  mark  time 
until  the  80th  had  reached  a  given  point,  as  the  80th 
in  turn  waited  on  the  advance  of  the  3rd.  The  day 
was  overcast;  it  was  already  dusk  at  5.40  P.M.,  when 
word  was  given  for  the  4th  to  charge  as  the  start  of 
three  days'  fighting  more  bitter  than  the  division 
had  yet  known. 

Draw  a  line  east  and  west  through  the  4th's  front, 
and  it  would  now  have  passed  to  the  north  of  the 
Borne  de  Cornouiller,  whose  guns  were  throwing 
their  shells  into  the  right  rear  of  the  charge.  Their 
fire  was  joined  by  that  from  all  the  other  galleries, 
while  the  machine-guns  from  Brieulles  swept  a  field 
of  targets  revealed  by  the  light  of  bursting  shells. 
Barrages  of  gas  shells  were  laid  across  the  path  of 


346  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  charge  and  into  the  woods  ahead.  This  was  par- 
ticularly trying  in  the  gathering  darkness,  over 
ground  where  landmarks  could  not  be  distinguished. 
The  bull-dog  did  not  take  hold  this  time.  There  was 
nothing  to  grip  except  the  murderous  flashes.  To 
go  on  was  only  to  court  a  fearful  casualty  list  and 
inevitable  confusion  and  disorganization  in  the  dark- 
ness, which  could  not  be  readily  repaired. 

The  troops  were  recalled,  while  the  German  gun- 
ners continued  to  shell  the  field  of  their  advance, 
thinking  that  they  were  still  moving  forward.  The 
next  morning,  they  started  early  in  order  to  have  a 
full  day  before  them.  In  face  of  the  same  kind  of 
deluge  of  gas  and  shells,  and  trench-mortar  in  addi- 
tion to  machine-gun  fire,  and  under  the  support  of 
their  own  barrage,  they  made  one  bite  of  the  tongue 
of  Martinvaux  Wood  with  its  trench  line  on  the 
right.  They  passed  through  the  eastern  portion  of 
the  Peut  de  Faux  Wood,  where  the  undergrowth 
was  dense  and  there  was  no  protecting  men  with  a 
barrage.  Advance  elements  charged  across  the 
ravine  into  the  larger  Foret  Wood;  but  it  was  hope- 
less to  try  to  consolidate  in  the  midst  of  gas  and 
machine-gun  fire  from  the  depth  of  the  wood.  By 
this  time  the  line  was  past  Brieulles,  whose  guns  and 
machine-guns  were  of  course  stabbing  the  flank  at 
close  quarters. 

Brieulles,  considering  the  cost  of  taking  it,  was 


IN  THE  MEUSE  TROUGH  347 

not  so  important  to  immediate  Army  purpose  as 
thrusting  the  wedge  into  the  flank  of  the  whale-back. 
So  Brieulles,  which  was  not  to  be  ours  until  we  won 
the  whale-back  three  weeks  later,  had  to  be  borne; 
and  it  was  the  way  of  the  4th  to  bear  such  thrusts 
in  the  ribs  without  flinching,  as  it  prepared  for 
another  attack  the  next  day  under  the  plunging  fire 
from  the  galleries.  Beginning  again  at  7  A.M.,  when 
it  had  finished  its  day's  work  it  was  through  the 
gassed  Foret  Wood,  and  had  sent  its  patrols  up  on 
Hill  299  beyond.  This  was  the  high-water  mark 
of  its  arduous  and  glorious  part  in  the  battle.  It 
had  gone  as  far  as  anything  but  tactical  madness 
would  permit,  until  the  heights  of  the  whale -back 
and  east  of  the  Meuse  could  be  broken.  Until 
October  19th,  it  held  its  gains  under  continual 
gassing  and  cross  artillery  fire. 

Twenty-three  days  in  the  welter  of  the  Meuse 
slopes,  it  had  been  able  to  remain  all  that  time  in 
gassed  woods  and  ravines  in  cold  autumn  rains, 
owing  to  its  character  that  made  every  ounce  of 
energy  answer  a  resolute  will  to  well-directed  ends; 
for  this  bull-dog  also  had  something  of  the  nature 
of  the  opossum  and  the  panther.  It  knew  how  to 
spring.  The  depth  of  the  division's  advance  was 
eight  miles,  and  the  marvel  of  this  was  that  every 
yard  since  the  first  day  had  been  gained  in  frontal 
attack  against  machine-gun  nests  protected  by  supe- 


348  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

rior  artillery  fire.  It  had  taken  2,731  prisoners  and 
44  guns,  some  of  them  of  large  caliber,  with  a  loss 
of  6,000  officers  and  men  killed  and  wounded.  A 
proud  division  the  4th,  with  the  right  to  be  proud, 
though  it  had  no  parades  in  its  honor,  as  its  per- 
sonnel came  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  when  it 
returned  home. 

During  the  latter  days  of  its  service,  it  began  to 
realize  that  our  own  artillery  fire  was  increasing. 
This  seemed  almost  too  good  to  be  true,  and  of 
course,  as  the  men  remarked,  it  came  after  the  4th's 
offensive  work  was  over.  The  fact  was  that  our 
army  was  receiving  more  guns.  It  was  also  noticed 
that  there  was  less  flanking  artillery  fire.  This  was 
due  not  only  to  our  attacks  on  the  Romagne  posi- 
tions, which  absorbed  more  and  more  of  the  atten- 
tion of  the  German  gunners  of  the  whale-back,  but 
also  to  the  driving  of  still  another  wedge,  this  time 
on  the  east  side  of  the  Meuse — the  wedge  which  at 
one  stage  of  the  battle  the  1st  was  intended  to 
drive  before  that  on  the  Aire  wall  became  more 
vital. 

The  farther  we  went,  the  more  bitterly  we 
realized  the  murderous  handicap  of  a  force  advanc- 
ing on  exposed  slopes  on  one  bank  of  a  river,  with 
its  flank  at  right  angles  to  the  other  bank  held  by  the 
enemy  far  back  of  its  reserves.  After  the  attack  of 
October  4th  on  the  right  went  forward  naked  to  this 


IN  THE  MEUSE  TROUGH  349 

terrible  flanking  fire,  the  French  Seventeenth  Corps, 
in  support  of  the  forthcoming  attack  of  the  9th,  in- 
cluding two  American  divisions,  the  29th  and  the 
33rd,  under  its  command,  was  to  make  a  drive  from 
the  old  trench  system  at  Samogneux — the  start  line 
of  the  German  Verdun  offensive  of  19 16,  and  oppo- 
site the  line  from  which  our  army  had  started  on 
September  26th — down  the  east  bank  of  the  Meuse. 
The  French  engaged  at  many  points  on  the  Allied 
front  were  short  of  troops;  but  despite  all  the  calls 
from  other  points  the  high  command  had  finally 
fixed  its  eye  on  the  Borne  de  Cornouiller. 

Our  Illinois  men  of  the  33rd  Division  had  been 
holding  our  side  of  the  river  bank,  dug  in  in  face  of 
the  other  bank  and  the  German  flank,  with  only  divi- 
sional artillery  to  answer  the  long-range  artillery 
from  the  heights.  Having  won  attention  for  its 
brilliant  swinging  movement  which  brought  its  front 
to  the  river  bank  on  the  first  day  of  the  battle,  the 
33rd  was  now  to  undertake  a  far  more  difficult,  and 
a  spectacular  and  daring,  maneuver.  Every  veteran 
from  Caesar's  day  on  the  Rhine  to  Grant's  and  Lee's 
on  the  Potomac  knows  what  it  means  to  force  a 
crossing  of  an  unfordable  stream  under  fire.  In  this 
instance  it  must  be  done  under  frowning  heights,  in 
the  days  when  machine-gun  bullets  carry  three  thou- 
sand yards,  and  shells,  according  to  the  caliber  of 
the  gun,  from  three  to  seven  times  as  far.     There 


350  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

were  to  be  two  bridges;  one  at  Brabant,  120  feet 
long,  and  one  at  Consenvoye,  1 50  feet  long. 

In  building  their  own  exclusive  road  over  the 
Mort  Homme,  which  enabled  the  rolling  kitchens  to 
bring  up  hot  meals  to  the  infantry,  the  Illinois  engi- 
neers had  shown  their  capacity  for  "rustling,"  which 
they  now  applied  in  gathering  material  for  their  new 
task.  In  broad  daylight,  in  full  view  of  the  enemy's 
guns  which  forced  them  to  wear  their  gas  masks, 
they  brought  their  boards  and  timbers  to  the  river 
bank  and  did  their  building.  Shells  were  falling  on 
their  labors  at  Consenvoye  at  the  rate  of  ninety  an 
hour;  but  that  did  not  interrupt  their  labors.  Men 
fell,  but  others  kept  on  the  job.  Punctuality  was  a 
strong  point  with  the  Illinois  men.  The  bridges 
must  be  up  on  time,  and  they  were. 

The  time  of  crossing  depended  upon  the  move- 
ment of  our  29th  Division,  coming  up  on  the  east 
bank  as  the  flank  of  the  advance  of  two  French  divi- 
sions. At  9  A.  M.  the  29th  passed  the  word,  and  the 
regiment  of  the  33rd  which  had  been  assembled  in 
the  Forges  Wood  rushed  for  the  bridges.  Night 
would  have  been  a  more  favorable  time  for  cross- 
ing, perhaps;  but  that  was  not  on  the  cards.  All  the 
divisional  artillery  was  pounding  the  opposite  bank 
as  a  shield,  while  the  French  artillery  was  also  busy, 
and  the  advance  of  the  infantry  on  the  other  bank 
was   drawing    fire.      Thoroughly    drilled    for    their 


IN  THE  MEUSE  TROUGH  351 

part,  the  Illinois  men  lost  no  time  in  the  crossing, 
which  was  effected  with  slight  casualties.  Now 
under  command  of  the  Seventeenth  Corps,  joining 
up  with  the  flank  of  the  29th,  it  worked  its  way  for 
a  mile  and  a  half  up  the  river  bank  until  it  dug  in 
at  night  on  the  edge  of  the  Chaume  Wood  after  a 
faultless  day's  work. 

In  the  operations  east  of  the  Meuse  now  begun, 
I  shall  describe  only  the  actions  of  our  own  divisions. 
The  29th  Division,  under  command  of  Major- 
General  Charles  G.  Morton,  had  taken  the  name  of 
the  "  Blue  and  Grey."  Many  of  its  Guardsmen 
were  grandsons  of  veterans  from  New  Jersey,  Dela- 
ware, and  Virginia.  After  nearly  two  months  in  the 
quiet  trench  sector  at  Belfort,  it  had  been  marched 
on  the  night  of  the  8th  past  the  ruins  of  villages  in 
the  Verdun  battle  area  for  its  initiation  into  two 
weeks  of  fighting,  which  showed  that  one  side  of 
the  trough  of  the  Meuse  had  no  preference  over  the 
other  in  the  resistance  which  the  enemy  had  to 
offer. 

A  system  of  hills  extending  from  the  Verdun  forts 
to  the  Borne  de  Cornouiller  formed  the  walls  of  a 
bowl,  which  the  French  Corps  in  a  fan-shaped  move- 
ment was  to  ascend.  Their  slopes  were  wooded  and 
cut  by  ravines  commanding  the  bottom  of  the  bowl 
itself,  which  was  irregular,  but  everywhere  in  view 
of  the  heights.     The   29th  was  to  drive  straight 


352  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

toward  the  Borne  de  Cornouiller.  Upon  its  success 
on  the  first  day,  may  it  be  repeated,  depended  largely 
the  success  of  the  33rd's  crossing  of  the  Meuse. 
The  farther  away  from  the  river,  the  stronger  were 
the  enemy's  positions.  Advancing  without  any  artil- 
lery preparation,  the  29th  took  the  enemy  completely 
by  surprise.  It  was  twenty  minutes  before  he 
brought  down  his  artillery  fire.  This  gave  the  Blue 
and  Greys  a  good  start.  After  hot  work  at  close 
quarters  they  captured  Malbrouck  Hill,  which  was 
a  strong  point  in  the  German  support  trench  system 
of  Verdun  days.  Then  passing  across  the  open 
under  increasing  German  gun-fire,  they  overran  all 
the  machine-gun  nests  in  the  dense  Consenvoye 
Wood.  There  they  were  halted  by  orders  to  allow 
the  division  on  their  right  to  come  up.  Combat 
groups  which  had  reached  Molleville  farm  and  the 
Grande  Montagne  Wood  were  called  in,  and  the 
position  consolidated  during  the  night.  The  enemy 
by  this  time  was  fully  awake  to  the  plan  of  the 
Seventeenth  Corps.  He  unloosed  that  torrent  of 
shells  and  gas  from  the  heights  of  the  rim  of  the 
bowl  which  was  not  to  cease  for  three  weeks. 

Its  right  exposed  after  an  advance  of  three  miles 
on  the  8th,  digging  in  under  the  bombardment  and 
repulsing  counter-attacks,  the  29th  was  not  to  at- 
tempt to  advance  on  the  9th;  but  the  33rd  had 
orders  to  go  to  Sivry  on  the  banks  of  the  Meuse, 


IN  THE  MEUSE  TROUGH  353 

whose  possession  was  most  important.  By  noon  it 
had  fought  its  way  through  Chaume  Wood,  and  by 
dark  its  patrols,  infiltrating  around  machine-gun 
nests  and  under  machine-gun  fire  from  the  slopes 
were  in  Sivry.  All  that  night  it  was  under  gas  and 
shell-fire.  The  next  day  it  must  make  sure  of  Sivry. 
The  29th  was  to  attack  on  its  right  in  support. 
Despite  the  artillery  concentrations  on  the  whole 
movement  laboring  in  the  bowl,  we  were  still  to  try- 
to  break  through  to  the  Borne  de  Cornouiller.  This 
was  a  vain  ambition,  which  the  Illinois  men  and  the 
Blue  and  Greys  none  the  less  valorously  tried  to 
achieve. 

The  33rd  had  brought  more  reserves  across  the 
river,  which  had  to  pass  through  powerful  artillery 
barrages  to  relieve  the  decimated  battalions  at  the 
front.  They  actually  reached  the  ridge  east  of 
Sivry,  right  under  the  guns  of  that  towering  Hill 
378  of  the  Borne  de  Cornouiller.  On  their  right 
the  29th  again  and  again  charged  for  the  possession 
of  the  Plat-Chene  ravine,  which  was  a  corridor  swept 
with  plunging  fire  from  right  and  left  and  in  front, 
and  saturated  with  gas.  Casualties  were  enormous, 
in  keeping  with  the  courage  of  this  new  division 
inspired  by  the  heritage  of  both  Blue  and  Grey.  It 
was  futile  to  persist  in  the  slaughter  of  such  brave 
and  willing  men;  futile  for  the  33rd  to  try  to  hold 
the  exposed  salient  of  the  Sivry  ridge;  but  every 


354  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

shell  they  received  was  one  spared  our  men  on 
the  slopes  of  the  west  bank  of  the  Meuse.  Aus- 
trian troops  which  had  been  holding  the  line  against 
them  were  replaced  by  veteran  Prussians  and  Wur- 
temburgers,  who  knew  how  to  make  the  most  of  their 
positions,  and  who  answered  attacks  with  counter- 
attacks. As  the  left  flank  which  must  not  yield  the 
river  bank,  the  33rd  intrenched  in  the  Dans  les 
Vaux  valley  through  the  Chaume  Wood.  We  were 
within  a  mile  of  the  Borne,  but  what  a  horrible  mile 
to  traverse.  The  first  stage  of  that  detached  battle 
east  of  the  Meuse,  so  important  in  its  relation  to  the 
main  battle,  was  over.  Its  second  stage  I  shall 
describe  later. 


XXI 

SOME  CHANGES  IN  COMMAND 

John  Pershing  of  Missouri  following  Petain  and  Nivelle — Training 
his  chiefs — The  solidity  of  Liggett — From  schoolmaster  of 
theory  to  Army  command — The  wiry  Bullard — His  mark  on 
the  pioneer  division — The  inexorable  Summerall,  crusader, 
martinet,  and   leader  of  men — The  imperturbable  Hines. 

When  from  the  window  of  a  luxurious  office  thirty 
stories  above  the  pavement  I  looked  down  upon  the 
human  current  of  Broadway,  and  over  the  roof- 
tops of  the  tongue  of  Manhattan,  and  across  the 
bridges  to  other  roof-tops,  and  upon  the  traffic  of 
bay  and  river,  I  thought  of  that  little  room,  first 
door  to  the  left  upstairs,  in  the  town  hall  of  Souilly, 
where  more  men  than  all  of  service  age  in  all  the 
city  of  New  York  had  been  commanded  in  two  of 
the  greatest  battles  of  history.  The  "  sacred  road  ' 
to  Verdun  took  the  place  of  Broadway;  the  volcano 
of  unceasing  artillery  fire,  the  place  of  the  city's 
muffled  roar. 

In  this  little  room  Petain  had  said,  "  They  shall 
not  pass,"  and  so  wrought  that  they  did  not  pass; 
and  Nivelle  had  shown  me  his  maps  and  plans  for 
the  brilliant  re-taking  of  Douaumont  and  Vaux  in 

355 


356  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  fall  of  19 16,  which  was  to  make  him  commander- 
in-chief  as  the  exemplar  of  a  system  of  attack  upon 
which  he  staked  his  reputation  in  the  Allied  offen- 
sive of  19 17.  In  those  days  no  one  dreamed  that 
American  khaki  would  stream  along  the  "  sacred 
road,"  and  American  guns  again  set  the  hills  trem- 
bling with  their  blasts;  or  that  John  Pershing  of 
Missouri  from  this  little  room  would  direct  the 
largest  force  we  had  ever  sent  into  action  in  the 
battle  which  was  to  be  the  final  answer  to  German 
aggression. 

The  Chief  of  Staff's  room,  its  walls  hung  with 
maps,  was  across  the  hall  from  the  Commanding 
General's,  as  it  had  been  in  the  Verdun  days.  Then 
as  now  it  sent  across  to  the  General's  desk  slips  of 
paper  with  the  digested  news  of  the  battle,  which  he 
could  follow  by  reference  to  his  own  maps.  Now 
as  then  a  cloistered  quiet  pervaded  the  building 
which  had  been  the  center  of  a  small  town.  Order- 
lies stood  on  guard,  and  adjutants  on  guard  above 
them.  The  lights  behind  the  black-curtained  win- 
dows burned  late,  as  on  the  basis  of  the  day's  news 
plans  for  the  next  day's  action  were  made — plans 
for  another  advance  against  the  Germans,  this  time, 
instead  of  resistance  to  their  advance. 

"  You  never  know  what  is  in  the  C.-in-C.'s  mind, 
and  how  it  is  coming  out,"  said  his  aide.  "  When 
it  comes,  it  comes  quick  and  definite — just  like  the 


SOME  CHANGES  IN  COMMAND    357 

DUtburst  of  a  bombardment  for  an  offensive  which 
has  been  weeks  in  preparation." 

He  listened  to  many  counselors;  but  the  decisive 
counsels  he  held  behind  the  locked  doors  of  his  own 
mind.  Those  who  thought  they  knew  what  he  was 
going  to  do  knew  least;  those  who  received  the 
most  affirmative  smile  bestowed  in  silence  might 
receive  the  most  positive  of  negative  decisions  when 
the  time  came.  He  was  charged  with  "  snap ' 
judgments  on  some  things;  and  with  unduly  delay- 
ing over  others — while  he  smiled  over  both  criti- 
cisms. In  all  events  his  word  was  supreme.  Men 
might  contrive  to  defeat  his  orders,  but  no  man 
dared  dispute  them.  He  had  continued  to  grow 
with  the  growth  of  his  army';  his  grip  of  the  lever 
strengthened  as  the  machine  became  more  pon- 
derous. Others  might  build  the  parts  of  the  ma- 
chine ;  he  brought  them  together  in  his  own  way  and 
his  own  time. 

We  had  started  with  divisions;  then  organized 
corps  staffs;  then  appointed  corps  commanders;  then 
organized  the  staff  of  the  First  Army,  now  in  the 
Meuse-Argonne,  and  afterward  the  staff  of  the  Sec- 
ond Army,  now  at  Saint-Mihiel.  He  was  still  com- 
manding both  armies  as  general  in  the  field.  When 
would  he  choose  their  commanders?  Professional 
army  gossip  had  an  ear  out  for  rumors.  Possibly 
the  Commander-in-Chief  did  not  know  himself;  pos- 


358  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

sibly  he  was  waiting  on  the  test  of  battle  to  find  the 
two  most  worthy  to  lead.  On  the  night  of  October 
nth  his  choice  was  made;  it  was  announced  by  his 
calling  up  some  generals  on  the  telephone.  Two 
learned  that  they  were  promoted  from  corps  to 
army  command,  two  that  they  were  promoted  from 
division  to  corps  command. 

It  was  no  surprise  to  learn  that  Major-General 
Hunter  Liggett  was  to  have  the  First  Army,  and 
Major-General  Robert  L.  Bullard  to  have  the 
Second  Army.  Liggett,  who  was  already  a  major- 
general  of  regulars,  had  been  considered  as  a  pos- 
sible commander  of  the  A.  E.  F.  when  we  first  de- 
cided to  send  an  army  to  France.  If  ever  a  soldier 
looked  as  if  he  could  "  eat  three  square  meals  a 
day  "  without  indigestion,  it  was  Liggett.  Over  six 
feet  in  height  and  generously  built,  his  majestic 
figure  would  attract  attention  in  any  gathering. 
There  was  a  depth  of  experience  shining  out  of  his 
frank  eyes,  and  he  radiated  mellowness,  poise,  and 
reserve  energy.  The  army  knew  him  as  a  thorough 
student,  sound  in  his  views,  which  he  could  express 
with  compelling  force.  No  one  questioned  that  he 
had  a  mind  capable  of  grasping  military  problems 
down  to  their  details,  and  a  resourcefulness  in  the 
"'  war  game  "  as  played  at  the  War  College  which 
fitted  him  in  theory  for  the  direction  of  immense 
forces. 


SOME  CHANGES  IN  COMMAND    359 

Large  bodies  move  slowly,  though  with  great 
momentum  when  they  start,  and  the  sceptic's  ques- 
tion about  Liggett  was  whether  or  not  he  had  energy 
in  keeping  with  his  mentality.  McDowell  made 
excellent  plans  for  Bull  Run,  and  lost  it.  McClellan 
seemed  an  ideal  leader,  but  lacked  convincing  power 
of  action,  though  he  built  a  machine  which  others 
were  to  direct. 

A  full  corps  in  the  plans  of  the  A.  E.  F.  was  six 
divisions;  and  when,  early  in  19 18,  Liggett  was 
assigned  to  the  Command  of  the  First  Corps,  he 
had  one  division  which  had  been  in  the  trenches,  and 
three  others  about  ready  to  go  into  the  trenches 
under  the  direction  of  the  French.  All  the  other 
corps  which  were  to  come  would  look  to  his  example 
in  pioneer  organization.  Settling  down  in  the  little 
town  of  Neufchateau,  he  formed  his  staff  and  set  to 
work  organizing  his  G's  of  operations,  intelligence, 
supply,  transport,  preparatory  to  taking  over  our 
first  permanent  sector. 

Thus  far  his  authority  had  been  little  more  than 
paper  routine  under  the  French.  He  was  a  school- 
master of  theory.  Then  the  March  German  offen- 
sive against  the  British  left  him  with  a  corps  staff 
which  was  a  fifth  wheel  in  present  plans,  just  as  he 
was  about  to  have  his  sector.  His  best  divisions 
were  being  sent  to  the  Picardy  battlefront  while  he 
remained  at  Neufchateau,  having  an  internal  Ameri- 


360  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

can  authority  over  any  divisions  in  the  trenches 
in  Lorraine,  but  even  these  were  under  the  direct 
command  of  French  corps.  He  accepted  the  situa- 
tion in  a  manner  in  keeping  with  his  mental  and 
physical  bigness.  He  kept  on  working  on  his 
'  war  college  "  organization  at  his  headquarters 
while,  operating  under  the  French  at  the  other 
side  of  France,  his  divisions  were  taking  Cantigny 
and  making  a  stand  on  the  Paris  road  and  on  the 
Marne. 

The  commanders  of  these  divisions,  however, 
were  winning  distinction  for  themselves  through 
actual  battle  experience,  and  some  of  them  would 
soon  be  taking  command  of  our  new  corps  com- 
posed of  our  rapidly  arriving  divisions,  which  raised 
the  question  if,  when  the  time  came  to  have  a  com- 
mander for  the  First  Army,  Liggett  would  not  be 
passed  over  from  very  want  of  any  except  theoretical 
preparation.  No  one  worried  less  about  this  than 
Liggett.  He  seemed  anything  but  ambitious.  Yet, 
pass  over  Liggett?  That  enormous,  calm,  thorough- 
going Liggett!  He  loomed  tall  as  his  six  feet,  and 
broad  in  proportion,  at  the  thought.  I  always  think 
of  him  leaning  over  a  table  studying  a  map,  with 
the  intensity  of  a  student  who  was  never  men- 
tally fatigued. 

When  was  he  to  have  any  battle  experience?     If 
we  were   to   have   an  integral   army  to   attack  the 


SOME  CHANGES  IN  COMMAND    361 

Saint-Mihiel  salient,  our  corps  commanders  must 
have  other  than  paper  training.  General  Pershing 
arranged  that  Liggett  take  corps  command  of  an 
American  and  a  French  division  in  the  Marne 
counter-offensive.  This  brought  him  into  close  asso- 
ciation with  the  French  army  command  in  the  midst 
of  a  great  movement.  Later,  in  its  operations  at 
Saint-Mihiel,  everybody  said  that  "  Liggett's  corps 
had  done  well,"  and  said  it  in  the  way  that  took 
for  granted  that  Liggett  was  bound  to  do  well.  He 
is  not  the  kind  of  man,  as  I  see  him,  who  sets  peo- 
ple into  a  contagion  of  cheers,  or  the  kind  of  man 
who  makes  enthusiastic  enemies  or  equally  enthusi- 
astic partisans.  Rather  he  is  like  some  sound  office 
member  of  a  great  law  firm,  who  does  not  make 
speeches  or  appear  in  court,  but  who,  other  lawyers 
say,  is  the  buttress  of  the  firm's  strength. 

I  remember  a  distinguished  civil  official  from 
home  talking  of  our  generals,  and  saying,  when  I 
suggested  Liggett :  "  Why,  he  is  the  one  I  didn't 
meet,"  which  was  not  surprising.  A  certain  isola- 
tion that  he  had  was  due  less  to  any  personal  exclu- 
siveness  than  to  the  fact  that  he  was  a  large  body 
well  anchored  to  his  maps  and  his  job. 

In  the  Meuse-Argonne  battle  his  corps  had  the 
wicked  front  on  the  left  against  the  Argonne  Forest 
and  the  valley  of  the  Aire;  and  again  he  did  well, 
leaving  no   doubt   that   he   had   energy   as   well   as 


362  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

capacity,  or  that  he  deserved  the  three  stars  of 
a  lieutenant-general  which  General  Pershing  now 
placed  on  his  shoulders.  Later,  in  the  drive  of 
November  ist,  his  maneuvering  of  our  corps  and 
divisions,  in  that  swift  movement  in  pursuit  and  in 
the  crossing  of  the  Meuse  which  gave  us  the  heights 
on  the  other  bank,  seemed  without  a  tactical  fault 
in  its  conception  and  execution,  and  it  warranted  the 
use  of  the  word  brilliant  in  thinking  of  Liggett,  who 
in  the  closing  days  of  the  war  had  the  opportunity 
to  show  the  cumulative  results  of  his  study  of  his 
maps  from  the  days  when  he  began  sawing  wood  in 
Neufchateau.  He  was  a  modest,  sound  soldier,  an 
able  tactician,  and  a  delightful,  simple  gentleman, 
who  did  his  country  honor  in  France  both  as  soldier 
and  as  man.  His  place  at  the  head  of  the  First 
Corps  was  taken  by  Major-General  Joseph  T. 
Dickman. 

Both  he  and  Major-General  Robert  Lee  Bullard, 
who  received  command  of  the  Second  Army,  then 
holding  our  line  won  in  the  Saint-Mihiel  operation, 
were  broad-minded  men  of  the  world  who  would 
have  made  their  mark  in  any  profession.  Physically 
you  could  make  two  Bullards  out  of  one  Liggett. 
My  most  distinct  picture  of  him  was  of  his  slight 
figure  in  his  big  fur  coat  in  the  midst  of  winter  rains 
and  sleet,  while  his  small  head,  with  his  close-fitting 
overseas  cap,  only  made  the  coat  appear  the  larger. 


SOME  CHANGES  IN  COMMAND    363 

In  his  command  of  the  1st  in  the  Toul  sector  and 
in  our  first  offensive  at  Cantigny,  he  had  set  his 
mark  on  our  pioneer  division.  The  French  liked 
him,  and  he  could  speak  their  language  with  the 
attractive  Southern  accent  of  his  boyhood  days. 
He  took  the  French  liaison  officers  into  his  family 
and  set  them  to  work,  and  they  became  so  fond  of 
his  family  that  one  of  them  was  overheard  telling 
French  staff  officers  what  a  lot  they  had  to  learn 
from  the  Americans.  If  Bullard  could  not  eat  three 
square  meals  a  day,  it  did  not  interfere  with  his 
belligerent  spirit.  His  brain  was  just  as  good  a 
fighting  brain  as  if  he  had  eaten  beefsteak  for  break- 
fast, lunch,  and  dinner.  However  bad  his  neuritis 
in  the  winter  days,  his  blue  eyes  were  always 
twinkling,  and  when  he  came  into  his  mess  and  the 
officers  rose,  his  smiling  request  that  they  dismiss 
the  formality  was  all  in  keeping  with  the  atmos- 
phere of  that  division  command. 

His  dry,  pungent  wit  was  not  affected  when  the 
doctor  put  him  on  a  diet  of  an  egg  and  a  bit  of  toast. 
It  always  came  back  to  the  fact  that  war  was  fight- 
ing. We  had  much  to  learn  from  the  French,  from 
the  British,  from  all  veterans,  and  you  could  not  be 
too  brave  or  too  skillful.  If  you  made  up  your  mind 
to  lick  the  other  fellow,  you  were  going  to  lick  him. 
When  his  neuritis  was  very  bad  at  one  time,  he  told 
General  Pershing  that  he  did  not  want  to  stand  in 


364  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  way  of  a  successor.  General  Pershing  replied 
that  he  would  not  forget  the  reminder;  and  re- 
marked to  someone  else :  "  Bullard's  division  is 
doing  well.  The  neuritis  hasn't  gone  to  his  head." 
His  body  seemed  to  be  made  of  elastic  steel  wire 
that  always  had  the  spring  for  any  occasion,  and 
the  more  fighting  he  had  the  better  his  health  be- 
came. In  the  Argonne  battle  his  neuritis  entirely 
disappeared. 

He  never  seemed  very  busy.  In  the  midst  of  bat- 
tle you  would  find  him  appearing  at  seeming  leisure; 
and  his  attitude  always  was:  "  What  a  fine,  able  lot 
of  men  I  have  around  me !  They  do  all  the  work 
for  me."  Thus  he  developed  brigadiers  out  of  his 
colonels. 

When  he  corrected  subordinates,  it  was  with  a 
simple  phrase  that  cut  through  the  fog  of  discussion. 
One  day,  before  an  operation,  one  of  his  colonels 
who  was  a  little  wrought  up  on  the  subject  told  him 
of  a  number  of  young  officers  in  his  regiment  who 
might  be  brave,  but  who  were  not  up  to  the  mark 
of  leadership.  "  You  think  it  over  coolly  and  make 
me  a  list  of  those  you  are  sure  about,"  said  Bullard. 
"  It's  a  matter  for  your  judgment.  Perhaps  these 
officers  will  do  better  in  some  service  that  is  not  com- 
batant, or  perhaps  they  need  a  little  lesson  which 
will  make  them  all  right  in  some  other  regiment. 
Make  me  the  list,  and  I'll  have  everyone  on  it  re- 


SOME  CHANGES  IN  COMMAND     365 

lieved  right  away  " — and  you  may  be  sure  that  the 
colonel  made  the  list  with  care. 

The  Third  Corps  had  been  tried  out  in  the  Marne 
salient.  In  the  Meuse-Argonne  battle  it  had  seized 
the  bank  of  the  Meuse  to  protect  our  right  flank, 
and  against  superior  raking  artillery  fire  from  the 
heights  of  the  whale-back  and  across  the  river,  on 
the  slopes  and  in  the  woods  of  the  Meuse  trough, 
gained  the  Cunel-Brieulles  road  with  an  indomitable 
skill,  which  proved  his  contention  that,  however 
heavy  the  odds,  if  you  make  up  your  mind  to  lick 
the  other  fellow  you  will. 

In  the  instances  of  Liggett  and  Bullard,  both  gen- 
eral officers  before  the  war,  high  rank  had  shown 
its  worthiness  of  higher  rank  in  the  swift  merciless 
test  of  war's  opportunities,  while  the  other  two 
officers  who  received  telephone  messages  from  the 
Commander-in-Chief  had  both  been  majors  when 
we  entered  the  war.  I  had  first  met  Charles  P. 
Summerall  as  a  lieutenant  in  Riley's  battery  on  the 
march  to  the  relief  of  Peking.  When  I  next  met 
him,  he  had  the  artillery  brigade  of  the  1st  Divi- 
sion. He  was  given  the  command  of  the  1st  when 
Bullard  was  given  a  corps.  The  way  in  which  he 
sent  the  veteran  division  through  toward  Soissons 
in  the  Marne  counter-offensive  was  a  precedent  for 
the  way  in  which  he  sent  it  as  a  wedge  over  the  Aire 
wall,  which  won  him  command  of  the  Fifth  Corps. 


366  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

In  the  last  days  of  the  war  no  one  of  Pershing's 
generals  was  more  talked  about  in  the  A.  E.  F.  than 
he.  His  was  a  personality  of  the  kind  which  was 
bound  to  make  talk.  No  one  ever  denied  that  he 
was  a  fighter  and  that  he  knew  his  profession.  He 
could  make  men  follow  him,  and  make  men  fear 
him.  They  called  him  a  "  hell-devil  of  a  driver," 
but  won  victories  under  him.  If  he  had  started  as 
a  private  in  the  French  Revolution,  and  had  not  been 
killed  too  early  in  his  career,  I  think  that  he  would 
have  had  one  of  the  marshal's  batons  which  Na- 
poleon said  every  private  carried  in  his  knapsack. 
If  no  general  expected  more  of  his  soldiers  than 
Summerall,  no  general  expected  more  of  himself. 
Sturdily  built,  of  average  height,  he  was  tireless. 
He  could  go  about  the  front  all  day,  and  work  at 
headquarters  all  night;  or  go  about  the  front  all 
night,  and  work  at  headquarters  all  the  next  day. 
When  officers  and  men  were  numb  from  fatigue,  he 
gave  an  example  of  endurance  as  a  reason  for  his 
further  demands  on  their  strength.  "  If  you  win, 
your  mistakes  do  not  count,"  he  told  a  group  of 
officers  one  day.  "  If  you  lose,  they  do.  If  you 
win,  your  men  have  their  reward  for  their  wounds 
and  suffering,  and  those  who  have  fallen  have  not 
died  in  vain.  If  you  fail,  your  men  feel  that  all 
their  effort  has  been  wasted.  Do  not  fail.  Go 
through !  " 


SOME  CHANGES  IN  COMMAND     367 

It  was  said  of  him,  as  it  was  said  of  Grant,  that 
he  was  not  afraid  of  losses.  Like  Grant,  he  was  a 
hammerer.  Pershing  could  depend  upon  him,  as 
Petain  could  depend  upon  Mangin,  to  "  break  the 
line,"  and  as  Lee  depended  upon  Jackson  to  arrive 
on  time  and  ahead  of  the  enemy.  Considering  the 
objectives  he  gained,  his  admirers  regarded  him  as 
a  master  economist  of  lives,  as  he  was,  comparing 
what  he  gained  for  a  given  number  of  casualties 
with  what  many  other  divisions  gained  for  their 
casualties.  With  an  iron  will  he  applied  the  prin- 
ciple that  he  who  hesitates  in  war  is  lost.  If  you 
keep  the  upper  hand,  the  enemy  suffers  more  heavily 
than  you.  SummeraH's  standard  was  always  what 
he  was  doing  to  the  enemy,  and  his  attitude  toward 
the  enemy  was  not  that  of  a  professional  soldier 
who  regards  war  as  a  game  in  which  you  are  testing 
your  wits  against  an  adversary.  He  would  at  times 
exhibit  a  Peter  the  Hermit  fervor  when  he  spoke 
of  his  soldiers'  crusade  against  the  barbarians,  or 
pointed  out  to  them  ruined  villages  and  heart-broken 
peasants  as  another  reason  for  charging  again. 
With  his  staff  around  him  in  the  midst  of  an  action, 
he  gave  an  impression  of  thorough  grasp  of  their 
parts  and  his.  In  this,  as  in  everything  he  did,  he 
had  a  touch  of  the  histrionic.  He  was  most  con- 
cretely modern  in  arranging  his  patterns  of  bar- 
rages, and  at  the  same  time  it  occurred  to  an  ob- 


368  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

server  that  it  would  have  taken  only  a  change  of 
garb  and  hardly  of  mood  to  make  him  perfectly  at 
home  among  the  knights  before  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem.  By  this  time  you  will  understand  that 
he  is  of  a  type  whose  characteristics  entreat  a 
writer  to  fluency,  and  that  there  are  several  Sum- 
meralls. 

There  was  the  Summerall  who  might  turn  up  at 
any  point  on  his  front  at  any  time  and  talk  to  his 
men,  while  an  officer  stood  apprehensively  by,  won- 
dering what  might  happen  to  him;  a  Summerall  who 
rounded  on  officers  and  men  for  carelessness  about 
details  that  would  mean  a  habit  of  carelessness 
which  would  accompany  them  into  action;  a  Sum- 
merall surprising  young  officers  who  considered  him 
a  ruthless  driver  by  telling  them  that  they  were 
working  too  hard — when  it  seemed  to  them  that 
they  never  could  work  hard  enough  to  please  him 
— and  that  they  must  not  worry  over  their  maps  and 
orders  in  a  way  to  keep  them  from  getting  enough 
sleep  to  insure  the  strength  necessary  for  self- 
command  and  the  command  of  their  men.  Again, 
he  would  speak  of  his  men  and  particularly  of  their 
deeds  of  initiative  with  a  gentle,  worshipful  awe,  as 
if  every  one  were  greater  than  any  marshal  of 
France  in  his  estimation;  again,  he  would  be  telling 
his  young  officers  that  they  could  not  be  worthy  of 
their  men,  but  that  he  expected  their  most  devoted 


SOME  CHANGES  IN  COMMAND     369 

effort  to  that  end.  The  men  would  always  follow 
if  they  knew  how  to  lead.  He  made  it  an  almighty 
honor  and  a  responsibility  to  be  a  second  lieutenant, 
and  yet  he  would  censure  colonel,  lieutenant,  or 
private  in  a  manner  which  assuredly  no  politician 
would  ever  use  in  order  to  win  the  vote  of  a  con- 
stituent. When  an  officer  and  a  number  of  men 
standing  in  a  group  were  all  hit  by  the  same  shell, 
he  had  a  glaring  example  to  demonstrate  how  un- 
trained we  still  were  when  an  officer  would  allow 
soldiers  to  gather  round  him  and  become  a  target 
for  the  enemy's  artillery,  thus  losing  their  lives 
without  taking  a  single  German  life  in  return.  The 
sight  of  those  bodies  spoiled  the  victory  for  Sum- 
merall.  He  burned  the  picture  in  the  minds  of  his 
men  in  the  course  of  their  drills.  One  lieutenant 
said  that  if  the  spirit  of  the  officer  who  had  been 
the  center  of  the  group  could  have  been  given  the 
chance  to  come  back  to  earthly  life,  he  might  refuse 
it  in  fear  of  the  lecture  he  would  receive  from 
Summerall  for  his  inefficiency. 

All  the  different  Summeralls  were  the  different 
strings  to  his  bow  in  applying  his  teachings  and  gain- 
ing his  ends,  while  he  was  unconscious  of  there 
being  more  than  one  Summerall.  He  was  the 
A.  E.  F.'s  negation  of  the  propagandic  habit  of 
building  up  the  characters  of  generals  from  one 
common  attribute,  when  every  one  of  them,  whether 


370  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

French  or  British  or  American,  was  an  individual 
human  being. 

When  you  went  to  Summerall's  headquarters  by 
day,  you  were  pretty  certain,  unless  there  were  a 
big  action  in  progress,  to  find  him  absent,  looking 
in  on  divisional,  brigade,  regimental,  or  battalion 
headquarters,  moving  about  among  the  guns  and 
transport  and  troops — wherever  it  pleased  him  to 
go  in  his  insistence  upon  keeping  in  close  human 
touch  with  the  forces  under  his  command.  He  left 
routine  to  his  staff  officers,  and  he  expected  much 
of  his  chief  of  staff.  How  his  staff  officers,  hard 
master  though  he  was,  respected  his  ability ! 

He  could  be  forensic  on  occasion,  as  he  was 
searchingly  brief  at  others.  It  was  not  beneath  his 
military  dignity  to  make  a  speech,  either.  On  the 
day  before  the  great  final  attack  on  November  ist, 
when  the  German  line  was  broken,  he  was  out  from 
morning  to  night,  gathering  officers  in  groups 
around  him  and  addressing  his  soldiers,  reminding 
them  of  their  duties  on  the  morrow,  when  there 
must  be  no  faint-heartedness.  They  must  go 
through.  When  he  returned  to  his  headquarters, 
hoarse  from  talking  in  the  raw  open  air,  General 
Maistre,  who  had  come  from  Marshal  Foch,  was 
there,  and  General  Pershing  came  in  a  little  later. 
Both  asked  the  one  question  of  Summerall:  would 
he  go  through?    He  answered  that  he  would,  with 


SOME  CHANGES  IN  COMMAND     371 

the  positiveness  that  he  had  been  instilling  into  his 
troops. 

If  he  had  ever  failed  in  one  of  his  drives,  there 
would  certainly  have  been  a  smash,  but  he  made  no 
blind  charges.  He  wanted  to  know  where  he  was 
going,  and  he  wanted  to  be  sure  that  he  had  his 
bridge  of  shells  for  the  men  to  cross  in  their  ad- 
vance. He  prepared  his  lightnings  well,  but  when 
they  were  loosed  he  would  not  stay  them. 

Major-General  John  L.  Hines,  the  new  com- 
mander of  the  Third  Corps,  had  been  a  colonel 
under  Bullard  in  the  1st  Division,  and  had  com- 
manded the  bull-dog  4th  Division  in  the  Third 
Corps,  under  Bullard,  in  the  trough  of  the  Meuse. 
He  was  of  a  wholly  different  type  from  Summerall, 
with  whom  he  shared  the  honor  for  swift  promotion 
won  in  the  field.  It  was  said  of  him  that  he  was 
the  best  linguist  of  the  A.  E.  F.,  as  he  could  be 
equally  silent  in  all  languages,  including  English. 
If  the  accepted  idea  of  General  Grant  is  true,  he 
and  Grant  could  have  had  a  most  sociable  evening 
together  by  the  exchange  of  a  half  dozen  sentences, 
of  which  I  am  certain  that  General  Hines  would 
not  have  used  more  than  his  share. 

He  came  to  France  with  General  Pershing  as  a 
major  in  the  adjutant-general's  office,  where  he 
served  for  some  time  before  he  was  sent  to  a  regi- 
ment.    He  seemed  to  be  out  of  place  at  a  desk.     It 


372  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

was  like  asking  taciturn  Mars — and  I  suppose  that 
Mars  was  taciturn — to  do  drawn  work.  Sandy  of 
complexion,  sturdily  built,  he  had  that  suggestive 
quiet  strength,  militarized  by  army  service,  which 
we  associate  with  Western  sheriffs  who  do  not  talk 
before  they  shoot.  Without  his  having  said  a  word, 
you  understood,  by  the  very  way  in  which  he  was 
taciturn,  that  if  you  were  in  a  tight  place  you  would 
like  to  have  him  along.  I  used  to  think  that  if  a 
section  of  the  floor  had  been  blown  up  in  front  of 
his  desk  while  he  was  signing  a  paper,  the  shock 
of  the  explosion  would  not  have  interfered  with 
the  legibility  of  his  signature.  There  was  some- 
thing in  his  manner  which  soldiers  would  respect. 
They,  too,  saw  that  he  would  be  a  good  companion 
in  a  tight  place.  When  someone  had  a  troublous 
problem  on  hand,  he  would  say:  "Let  me  have  it. 
I'll  take  care  of  it."  He  took  care  of  it  promptly 
too,  once  he  had  the  paper  in  his  strong  hands. 

Whether  as  a  major  or  as  a  corps  commander, 
he  was  quick  to  appreciate  that  a  subordinate  was 
preoccupied  with  unimportant  things,  and  he  had 
seen  enough  red  tape  in  the  old  adjutant-general's 
office  to  know  how  to  amputate  it  without  too  much 
hemorrhage.  In  common  with  Summerall  he  too 
had  the  endurance  which  no  amount  of  work  seems 
to  faze,  and  that  clarity  of  thought  and  readiness 
of  decision  which  thrive  on  crises.     He,  too,  went 


SOME  CHANGES  IN  COMMAND     373 

among  his  troops,  impressing  them  with  his  cool, 
unchanging  personality,  his  bull-dog  tenacity,  and 
his  implacably  aggressive  spirit. 

Having  spoken  his  messages  over  the  telephone 
which  called  to  greater  service  the  adjutants  who 
had  served  him  well,  General  Pershing  might  move 
about  his  far-flung  kingdom  again,  though  he  was 
not  to  be  long  away  from  the  battlefront.  Noth- 
ing in  the  A.  E.  F.  was  better  regulated  than  his 
own  time  and  movements.  Wherever  he  was,  his 
special  train  was  waiting  upon  him.  In  these  later 
days  he  had  a  car  fitted  up  as  an  office,  with  aides 
and  stenographers  in  attendance.  When  the  train 
pulled  out  from  a  station,  two  automobiles  were  on 
board.  They  were  in  readiness  when  the  train  ar- 
rived at  its  destination.  If  he  had  only  a  hundred 
miles  to  go,  it  was  covered  in  the  night  while  he 
was  asleep.  The  day's  beginning  found  him  where 
he  chose  to  be,  at  Marshal  Foch's  headquarters,  at 
the  main  headquarters  at  Chaumont,  in  Paris,  or 
at  either  Army  headquarters.  If  he  wished  to  speak 
over  the  wires,  they  were  instantly  cleared  of  other 
messages.  The  President  of  the  United  States  may 
only  ask  a  senator  or  a  governor  to  come  to  see  him; 
but  a  word  from  the  C.-in-C.  for  any  officer  to  re- 
port to  him  at  a  certain  hour  and  place  was  an 
order.  One  might  come  clear  across  France  for  the 
ten-minute  conference  which  was  set  down  in  the 


374  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

schedule  of  appointments  on  the  pad  of  the  aide  to 
the  C.-in-C.  The  democracy  had  bestowed  unlim- 
ited autocracy  and  responsibility,  too,  upon  John  J. 
Pershing. 

He  had  become  the  creature  of  this  responsibility, 
determined  to  be  equal  to  it,  his  human  impulsive- 
ness of  other  days  now  and  then  flashing  out  at  the 
circle  of  authority  that  hedged  him  in,  and  his  indig- 
nation cleaving  with  broad-sword  blows  the  links  of 
bureaucracy  that  plotting  minds  had  forged  around 
him. 

At  last  after  fifteen  months  his  plans  had  achieved 
fruition.  If  he  had  not  had  imagination,  he  could 
not  have  visualized  the  structure  before  he  began 
its  building.  Out  of  his  window  in  that  little  room 
of  the  town  hall,  which  had  a  significance  that  none 
of  his  other  headquarters  had,  as  he  turned  from 
his  map  he  looked  down  upon  the  "  sacred  road  " 
to  Verdun,  which  was  the  main  street  of  Souilly. 
Motor  trucks  came  and  went,  and  at  one  side  of 
the  town  hall  the  staff  cars  stood  in  military  line, 
waiting  upon  the  commands  of  generals  and  colonels 
whom  they  served.  The  houses  of  the  little  town 
had  not  room  for  all  the  office  force  of  First  Army 
Headquarters.  This  had  overflowed  into  many 
temporary  buildings  with  walls  of  tar-paper,  where 
all  the  different  branches,  to  the  tune  of  the  hosts 
of  typewriters  which  was  the  "  jazz  "  of  staff  com- 


SOME  CHANGES  IN  COMMAND     375 

mand,  worked  and  had  their  messes.  They  sent  out 
the  leading,  if  not  always,  perhaps,  the  light,  through 
the  battle  area,  where  the  trucks  surged  all  night  and 
all  day  on  the  roads,  going  forward  laden  with  am- 
munition and  food  and  returning  empty,  where  the 
ambulances  went  forward  empty  and  returned  laden, 
behind  the  vortex  of  the  struggle.  How  was  all  this 
power,  and  how  were  the  men  who  exerted  it  on  a 
twenty-mile  front  in  France,  brought  from  home? 
Long  before  Marshal  Foch  had  summoned  our 
troops  to  the  attack  in  the  Meuse-Argonne,  General 
Pershing  had  made  his  plan  of  how  they  should  be 
concentrated  as  the  right  flank  of  an  Allied  move- 
ment. To  carry  this  out  he  was  to  depend  upon 
another  adjutant. 


XXII 


A  CALL  FOR  HARBORD 


Pershing's  right-hand  man — From  the  center  of  power  to  the  field 
— Radical  measures  for  the  Services  of  Supply — Our  own 
Goethals — Varied  personnel  united  in  discontent — Regulars 
and  experts — Harbord's  two  problems  of  construction  and 
morale. 


As  President,  Theodore  Roosevelt  had  made 
Pershing  a  brigadier  over  the  heads  of  a  small 
host  of  senior  officers,  and  had  likewise  singled  out 
Sims,  who  was  to  command  in  European  waters. 
When  he  was  forming  his  division,  which  destiny 
was  not  to  allow  him  to  lead  in  France,  he  chose  for 
one  of  his  brigade  commanders  James  G.  Harbord, 
then  a  major  of  regulars.  Harbord  was  not  a  West 
Pointer;  having  begun  his  army  career  as  a  private, 
his  rank  was  not  high  for  his  years  when  we  entered 
the  war.  Had  the  competition  of  civil  professions 
applied  in  the  army,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  he  would 
have  been  a  major-general  already,  and  that  some 
of  the  colonels  who  were  his  seniors  would  still 
have  been  lieutenants.  It  is  only  instruction  that  one 
receives  at  West  Point  or  at  any  college;  education 
is  for  the  graduate  to  receive  in  after  life,  a  detail 

3^> 


A  CALL  FOR  HARBORD  377 

he  sometimes  neglects.  Harbord  educated  himself 
by  study  and  observation  in  the  leisure  hours  which 
army  officers  have  for  the  purpose. 

One's  first  thought  upon  meeting  him  was  to  won- 
der why  he  should  have  enlisted  in  the  regulars. 
He  seemed  to  be  the  type  that  would  have  become 
in  another  environment  a  judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court  or  the  president  of  a  university.  After  one 
came  to  know  him,  it  was  evident  that  he  was  in 
the  army  because  he  was  naturally  a  soldier.  He 
was  also  to  prove  to  be  the  kind  of  organizer  who 
in  civil  life  is  a  good  mayor  of  a  great  city  or  the 
efficient  head  of  a  large  corporation. 

As  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  A.  E.  F.,  he  was 
Pershing's  right-hand  man  for  our  first  ten  months 
in  France. 

It  was  not  long  before  observers  began  to  appre- 
ciate that  he  was  one  of  the  officers  capable  of 
11  growing  "  with  the  growth  of  his  task.  One  of 
the  acquirements  of  his  self-education  was  lucid  and 
concise  English,  whether  dictated  to  a  stenographer 
or  written  on  his  little  folding  typewriter.  When 
you  brought  a  question  before  him,  there  was  action, 
unfettered  by  qualifying  verbiage.  He  did  not 
1  pass  the  buck  "  to  the  other  fellow,  according  to 
the  habit  which  army  regulations  and  restrictions 
readily  develop.  When  he  went  into  Pershing's 
room,  adjoining  his,  with  a  bundle  of  papers,  and 


378  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

returned  with  them  signed,  there  was  finality.  He 
could  be  tart  as  well  as  brief,  in  the  face  of  prolix 
and  meandering  reports  or  memoranda.  "  If  this 
man  really  had  something  to  say,"  he  remarked  one 
day  after  he  had  read  ten  typewritten  pages,  "  I 
wonder  how  many  more  pages  he  would  require." 

Next  to  Pershing  himself,  Harbord  was  most 
familiar  with  the  planning  and  forming  of  an  or- 
ganization which  would  be  equal  to  handling  an 
unprecedented  problem,  three  thousand  miles  from 
home.  That  story  about  the  old  quartermaster, 
who  said  that  everything  was  going  beautifully  until 
a  war  came  along  and  ruined  his  organization,  had 
a  most  palpable  application  when  a  department 
which  had  carried  on  the  routine  of  supplying  our 
small  regular  army  had  to  design  a  service  equal  to 
our  demands  in  France.  It  was  unequal  to  the  task. 
A  new  and  comprehensive  system  which  experience 
had  demonstrated  to  be  suited  to  our  needs  divided 
the  activities  of  the  army  into  two  territorial  depart- 
ments. One,  that  of  the  zone  of  advance,  running 
from  the  outskirts  of  our  training  area  in  Lorraine 
to  the  front,  was  to  have  charge  of  the  fighting. 
The  other  was  to  see  that  the  fighters  reached  the 
front  and  were  supplied  when  they  arrived.  His 
headquarters  at  Tours,  the  Commanding  General  of 
the  new  Services  of  Supply — the  "  S.  O.  S.,"  as  the 
army  knew  it — was  to  be  the  head  of  a  principality, 


MAP   NO.    10 
SERVICES    OF    SUPPLY.        SHOWING    POETS    AND    RAILROAD 

COMMUNICATIONS. 


A  CALL  FOR  HARBORD  379 

of  almost  the  breadth  of  France  itself,  under  the 
kingdom  of  Pershing. 

One  day,  when  at  last  our  long  period  of  drill  and 
preparation  was  having  the  substantial  result  of 
making  our  pressure  at  the  front  felt  in  earnest, 
Pershing   said:    "  I'm    going   to    send   Harbord   ta 

troops,  but  I   shall  have  him  back "   the   plan 

being  to  have  him  back  as  Chief  of  Staff,  I  under- 
stood. Harbord  had  his  desire,  the  desire  of 
every  soldier,  for  field  service.  A  brigadier-general 
now,  he  was  given  the  brigade  of  Marines  in 
place  of  Brigadier-General  Doyen,  who  had  been 
invalided  home,  where  he  died,  as  the  result  of  his 
hard  service  in  France.  One  week  I  saw  him  in  the 
barracks  building  at  Chaumont,  surrounded  by  hun- 
dreds of  adjutants,  in  the  direction  of  the  whole,  and 
the  next  week  I  found  him  in  charge  of  one  part — 
but  that  a  very  combatant  part — of  the  whole :  with 
no  stenographer,  but  writing  his  reports  and  orders 
on  the  little  folding  typewriter. 

His  new  command  required  the  tact  of  a  man  of 
the  world  as  well  as  of  a  soldier  among  soldiers. 
There  are  no  better  fighters  than  the  Marines;  none 
prouder  in  their  spirit  of  corps.  The  only  Marine 
brigade  in  France  was  not  pleased  at  the  thought  of 
having  a  regular  in  command.  It  wanted  one  of  its 
own  corps.  Harbord  had  not  been  about  among  the 
officers   and   men  many  times   before   the   Marines- 


380  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

were  saying,  "  Well,  if  we  had  to  have  an  army  man, 
we're  glad  we've  got  Harbord."  By  the  time  they 
were  fighting  in  Belleau  Wood,  they  had  put  their 
globe  insignia  on  his  collar,  which  he  was  proud  to 
wear.  He  was  adopted  into  the  Marines,  while 
regular  officers  were  saying  that  he  had  better  make 
his  transfer  official. 

His  record  of  the  battle  was  a  model  of  military 
reports,  which  did  not  hesitate  to  acknowledge  mis- 
takes in  detail,  the  point  being  that  the  Marines  won 
the  wood.  Promoted  to  be  a  major-general  and  to 
command  the  2nd  Division  (which  included  the 
Marines),  he  led  the  race-horse  2nd  in  the  counter- 
offensive  in  the  Chateau-Thierry  operations,  which 
was  the  turn  of  the  tide  against  the  Germans. 
After  this  success  the  next  step  for  him  seemed  to 
be  a  corps  command,  and  possibly  the  command  of 
an  army,  in  the  course  of  the  rapid  promotions  that 
were  due  to  care  for  the  immense  forces  now  arriv- 
ing in  France.  His  division  had  only  just  been  re- 
lieved, when  he  received  a  hurry  call  to  go  to 
Chaumont.  When  he  arrived,  Pershing  looked  him 
over  to  see  how  he  had  been  standing  the  strain  of 
two  months  of  severe  fighting,  after  his  ten  months 
of  harassing  strain  as  Chief  of  Staff.  Harbord  ap- 
peared fresh,  and  ready  for  another  year's  hard 
work. 

"  Harbord,    I'm    going    to    send    you    down    to 


A  CALL  FOR  HARBORD  381 

straighten  out  things  in  the  S.  O.  S.,"  Pershing  then 
told  him.    .    .    . 

"  Well,  you  see  what  my  general  has  done  to  me," 
Harbord  remarked  a  few  hours  later  in  an  outburst 
to  a  friendly  ear.  "  He's  taken  me  away  from  my 
division, — but,"  he  added,  "  he's  my  general.     He 

knows  what  he  wants  me  to  do "     Then  a  toss 

of  the  head,  and  from  that  moment  his  thought  was 
concentrated  on  his  new  duties. 

Things  had  been  going  badly  in  the  Services  of 
Supply.  There  was  congestion  at  the  ports;  con- 
struction work  was  not  proceeding.  In  view  of  the 
enormous  demands  which  would  arise  when  we 
should  have  two  million  men,  instead  of  the  million 
we  had  planned,  in  the  autumn,  the  situation  had 
suddenly  become  most  serious.  Washington,  with 
our  own  ports  sensitive  to  delays  at  those  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  had  about  decided  to 
send  General  Goethals  to  France  to  take  charge  of 
the  Services  of  Supply  as  a  co-ordinate  commander 
with  General  Pershing.  This  was  a  radical  depar- 
ture. It  meant  two  commanders  in  France  instead 
of  one,  directly  responsible  to  Washington.  Such 
divided  authority  in  such  a  crisis  stirred  the  appre- 
hension of  every  soldier  lest  in  a  great  crisis  the 
fighting  branch  should  not  be  supreme  over  every 
other  branch  which  served  its  will  and  necessities. 
The   simplest  of   military   principles   required   that 


382  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  commander  of  the  forces  at  the  front  must  com- 
mand the  whole,  or  his  fearful  responsibility  for 
needless  loss  of  life  rested  on  inadequate  authority. 
Harbord,  Pershing's  right-hand  man,  was  the 
counter  to  Washington's  suggestion;  that  major  of 
cavalry,  whom  nobody  knew  in  the  days  when 
Goethals  was  building  the  Panama  Canal,  would 
prove  that  we  already  had  a  Goethals  of  our  own 
in  France.  Without  going  over  the  ground  of  the 
pioneer  stages  of  the  Services  of  Supply,  covered  in 
my  first  book,  the  requirement  upon  which  all  trans- 
port depended  was  construction.  We  must  enlarge 
the  plant  which  France  offered  us  for  our  needs. 
This  meant  building  new  docks  to  accommodate  the 
requisite  shipping,  webs  of  spur  tracks,  immense 
areas  of  warehouses  at  the  ports  and  others  inland 
to  accommodate  our  supplies;  plants  for  assembling 
our  railroad  locomotives  and  cars  brought  from 
home;  repair  shops  for  them,  and  for  guns  and  gun 
carriages,  ambulances  and  aeroplanes  and  automo- 
biles, motor  trucks,  and  all  other  vehicular  trans- 
port. More  important  still,  there  must  be  repair 
shops  for  human  beings — enormous  hospitals  for 
caring  for  the  sick  and  wounded,  who  might  come 
by  the  hundreds  of  thousands  in  a  single  month. 
Hospital  trains  must  be  ready  for  their  transport 
from  the  front.  Enormous  bakeries  must  provide 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  loaves  every  day.     There 


A  CALL  FOR  HARBORD  383 

must  be  barracks  for  the  nurses  and  all  the  workers; 
barracks  for  the  aviators  and  helpers  who  were 
drilling;  lighters  for  disembarking  troops  when  they 
arrived;  camps,  where  they  could  spend  the  night 
ashore.  Railroad  sidings  must  enlarge  railroad 
capacity;  more  spur  tracks  must  be  built  wherever 
we  had  railheads  at  the  front,  and  regulating  sta- 
tions which  should  dispatch  the  trains  to  the  rail- 
heads. Around  quiet  villages  must  arise  temporary 
cities  of  our  building,  connected  with  all  the  other 
activities  in  a  system  which  was  punctual  and  de- 
pendable. 

The  S.  O.  S.  had  been  arranged  to  meet  the  de- 
mands of  an  army  in  our  own  sector.  Its  plan  was 
disrupted  by  the  switching  of  our  troops  to  Chateau- 
Thierry  and  Picardy  to  meet  the  German  offensives. 
The  mobilization  for  Saint-Mihiel  brought  us  back 
to  our  own  sector.  After  Saint-Mihiel  came  the 
Argonne  concentration,  called  into  being  by  the  hope 
of  a  speedy  end  of  the  war  through  one  supreme 
effort  by  all  the  Allies.  Should  our  new  troops, 
thrown  in  action  without  sufficient  preparation,  and 
the  veteran  troops,  thrown  in  without  time  for  re- 
cuperation after  Chateau-Thierry  and  Saint-Mihiel, 
go  without  food  and  ammunition,  we  might  have  a 
disaster.  The  wisdom  of  our  insistence  that  we 
could  form  and  supply  and  fight  an  integral  army, 
instead  of  infiltrating  our  men  into  the  British  and 


384  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

French  armies,  was  on  trial.     Victory  and  our  sol- 
diers' lives  were  at  stake. 

The  battle  was  to  be  fought  not  only  against 
machine-gun  nests,  but  in  the  sweating  effort  of 
stevedores,  of  mechanics,  and  laborers,  in  the  roar 
of  foundries,  in  the  rattle  of  trains  far  from  the 
sound  of  the  guns.  For  officer  personnel  in  the 
S.  O.  S.  we  had  first,  of  course,  the  regulars,  those 
of  the  old  quartermaster  department  and  of  the 
engineers,  who  would  not  ordinarily  command 
troops,  and  those  who  could  be  spared  from  the 
zone  of  advance  where  every  able  fighting  officer 
was  required.  These  must  be  few,  compared  to  the 
numbers  of  the  whole.  Second,  we  had  all  the  men 
in  the  thirties,  forties,  and  fifties,  experts  in  every 
calling,  who  had  come  to  France  in  their  enthusiasm, 
in  answer  to  the  summons,  in  the  days  when  the  thing 
was  for  every  man  to  serve  in  uniform  in  France. 
These  were  too  old  for  combat,  even  if  they  thought 
they  were  not.  They  could  not  stand  the  physical 
hardship  of  the  front,  however  brave  their  spirit. 
The  S.  O.  S.  was  the  place  for  them.  There,  or  in 
building  the  organization  of  supply  at  home — which 
was  primarily  important — the  nation  could  make 
the  best  use  of  their  training  in  civil  life.  Third 
were  younger  officers,  from  the  Guard  or  a  training- 
camp,  caught  by  the  card-index  system  classifying 
occupations,  and  separated  from  their  regiments  be- 


A  CALL  FOR  HARBORD  385 

cause  they  were  experts  in  some  line  of  activity 
which  was  short  of  personnel  in  the  S.  O.  S.  They 
knew  how  to  fight;  but  their  knowledge  of  some- 
thing else,  their  superiors  thought,  not  they,  was 
more  useful  to  the  nation. 

For  mechanics  we  had  all  the  men  skilled  in 
trades  at  home  who  were  as  ready  to  give  up  high 
wages  for  a  soldier's  pay,  and  to  work  double  union 
hours,  as  they  would  have  been  to  stick  tight  in  a 
fox-hole  against  a  counter-attack,  if  they  had  had 
the  chance.  These  came  in  their  thousands,  living 
under  conditions  far  more  miserable,  in  contrast  to 
their  habits,  than  their  officers — from  railroad  trains 
and  shops,  bakeries,  cement  factories,  contractors' 
firms,  and  every  industry  on  the  list — the  typical 
American  army,  which  has  made  industrial 
America. 

For  labor  we  had  all  we  could  pick  up  abroad: 
able-bodied  German  prisoners,  middle-aged  and  in- 
valided French  territorials,  Senegambians,  Turcos, 
Belgians,  Spaniards,  Chinese,  Annamites.  From 
home  we  had,  aside  from  expert  labor,  chiefly  the 
colored  men,  who  had  no  rivals  in  "  rustling " 
cargo.  At  the  docks  their  giant  strength  and  their 
good-natured  team-play  were  supreme;  but  they 
were  in  evidence  all  the  way  forward  to  the  shelled 
roads  which  they  were  repairing  back  of  the  front 
where  their  kinsmen  had  their  place  in  line. 


386  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

The  feeling  between  the  regulars  and  reserves, 
which  I  shall  describe  in  general  terms  elsewhere, 
was  bound  to  be  most  acute  in  the  S.  O.  S.  Suffice 
it  to  say  for  the  present  that  it  was  a  gospel  with 
the  regulars  that  they  should  hold  all  the  high  com- 
mands in  the  S.  O.  S.  as  well  as  at  the  front.  It 
was  granted  that  the  regulars  must  be  absolute  in 
the  zone  of  advance,  and  all  reserves  their  pupils 
or  "  plebes  ";  but  how  was  the  manager  of  a  great 
railroad,  of  a  bakery,  of  a  contracting  firm,  a 
chemist,  a  civil  engineer  who  had  built  tunnels  and 
bridges,  or  a  business  organizer,  to  feel  that  a 
regular  officer  was  his  superior  in  his  own  line? 
The  answer  of  the  regular  was  that  only  he  under- 
stood how  to  coordinate  all  policy  for  military  end, 
— the  old,  old  answer  of  the  inner  temple  of  mys- 
tery, from  the  days  of  the  Egyptian  priests  to  the 
present.  The  regulars  said,  too:  "How  can  we 
tell  who  is  the  real  expert?  These  big  men  from 
civil  life  are  jealous  of  one  another.  To  appoint 
one  over  the  heads  of  others  would  bring  friction. 
We  know  war.  Supply  is  a  part  of  war.  And  we 
shall  keep  matters  in  our  own  hands "  and  pro- 
motions, too,  as  the  reserves  might  whisper. 

A  point  which  the  regulars  dwelt  upon  even  more 
emphatically  was  that  the  reserve  officers  did  not 
know  discipline  and  army  forms.  Some  of  these 
reservists  had  directed  thousands  of  men  in  organi- 


A  CALL  FOR  HARBORD  387 

zations  at  home,  without  knowing  how  to  drill  a 
company.  In  their  experience,  building  railroad 
yards  and  warehouses  did  not  require  military  eti- 
quette. The  men  under  them  held  even  stronger 
convictions  on  the  subject.  They  were  doing  the 
same  kind  of  work  that  they  did  at  home,  and  amid 
peaceful  surroundings.  If  they  were  workmen  and 
not  soldiers,  why  should  they  have  to  submit  to  all 
the  distinctions  between  rank  and  file?  Must  they 
salute  every  man  with  a  gold  bar  who  happened  to 
pass  along,  when  he  was  no  nearer  the  front  than 
they?  He  was  not  their  boss.  What  mattered, 
except  that  they  were  "  on  the  job  "?  Why  did  not 
these  officers  pay  more  attention  to  getting  the 
tools  and  material  whose  lack  hampered  progress? 
The  officers  could  only  turn  to  their  seniors,  who 
turned  to  other  seniors,  on  through  the  channels 
of  authority,  to  the  lack  of  shipping,  and  to  the 
plants  at  home,  where  the  workmen  were  being 
driven  equally  hard,  but  did  not  have  to  wear  uni- 
forms and  crook  elbows  in  salute.  As  for  army 
forms,  the  reserve  officers  were  ready  to  comply 
with  them  if  they  could  find  that  there  was  any  set- 
tled system;  but  army  forms  seemed  to  change  to 
meet  the  requirements,  as  the  reservists  sometimes 
thought,  of  delaying  action,  when  that  suited  a  com- 
manding officer's  idea. 

Meanwhile,  why  should  the  assistant  to  the  chief 


388  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

baker  be  an  infantryman?  Not  that  he  wanted  to 
be  in  the  S.  O.  S. :  he  wanted  to  be  at  the  front. 
Was  the  baking  of  bread  taught  only  in  the  army? 
For  the  army,  yes,  thought  the  regulars.  The  com- 
plaints of  the  soldiers  about  the  quality  of  the 
bread,  which  were  warrantable,  seemed  to  indicate 
that  the  regulars  might  have  escaped  blame  by  giving 
the  responsibility  to  a  civilian  baker.  A  reserve 
officer  whose  business  was  automobile  manufacture, 
serving  in  a  repair  shop  under  a  cavalryman,  did 
not  deny  that  the  cavalryman  knew  how  to  lead  a 
squadron  in  a  charge,  but  did  he  know  about  mending 
broken  motor  trucks?  The  civil  engineer,  who  had 
once  executed  a  contract  for  five  millions,  as  he  re- 
ported to  a  young  West  Point  engineer  who  had 
been  a  lieutenant  when  we  entered  the  war,  might 
ponder  the  difference  between  theory  and  practice. 
A  regular  engineer  lieutenant-colonel  of  twenty-nine 
said:  "  From  what  I  have  seen  of  the  eminent  civil 
engineers,  I  should  think  that  they  ought  to  be 
my  subordinates."  He  was  young;  so  was  Napo- 
leon at  Marengo  and  Austerlitz.  Both  were  sol- 
diers. 

When  reserve  officers,  because  of  their  expert- 
ness,  were  given  authority,  it  did  not  mean  that  they 
were  always  able  to  exercise  it.  One  who  came  to 
France  under  the  express  condition  that  he  was  to 
be  supreme  in  his  branch  found  that  he  was  made  a 
subordinate.    What  could  he  do?     Resign?    Resign 


A  CALL  FOR  HARBORD  389 

in  time  of  war  ?  There  was  another  to  whom  Gen- 
eral Pershing  said :  "  You  go  ahead.  I  give  you 
carte  blanche  in  your  work."  One  day  he  was 
called  on  the  carpet  by  his  regular  senior  for  acting 
on  his  own  authority.  "  Who  told  you  to  do 
this?"  asked  the  superior. 

"General  Pershing!" 

"  Well,  then  you  better  report  to  him.  You  go 
tell  him  you  have  been  insubordinate,  you  haven't 
been  doing  things  through  channels,  and  see  what 
he   says." 

This  was  putting  the  Commander-in-Chief  himself 
to  the  test  of  regular  loyalty. 

"  You  tell  that  narrow-minded  regular  for  me," 
said  Pershing,  "  to  leave  you  alone." 

This  did  not  mean  that  the  reserve  officer  was  left 
alone.  He  could  not  carry  all  his  troubles  to  the 
busy  Commander-in-Chief,  as  he  struggled  against 
the  system. 

The  reservists,  both  officers  and  the  whole  force 
of  workers,  were  not  meeting  as  a  rule  the  best  class 
of  regulars.  A  brigadier  or  a  colonel  in  the  zone 
of  advance,  who  was  wearing  himself  out  physically 
and  mentally,  or  who  for  less  temporary  reasons  was 
not  efficient,  was  relegated  to  the  rear,  with  the  idea 
that  he  might  be  good  enough  for  the  S.  O.  S.  Yes, 
anything  was  good  enough  for  the  S.  O.  S.,  thought 
its  pestered,  nerve-racked  workers.  Was  that 
colonel  or  brigadier,  who  had  served  his  country  for 


39o  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

twenty  or  thirty  years,  to  be  made  subordinate  to 
some  railroad  man,  civil  engineer,  or  manufacturer, 
who  had  been  in  uniform  only  a  few  months?  He 
might  be  sent  home ;  but  surely  not  on  the  invitation 
of  General  Peyton  C.  March,  Chief  of  Staff  in 
Washington,  who  had  his  own  domestic  problem  in 
derelicts  without  the  further  annoyance  of  importa- 
tions. So  the  colonel  or  the  brigadier  was  cared 
for  in  the  S.  O.  S.,  all  the  while  feeling  keenly  his 
humiliation  at  not  having  command  of  a  regiment 
or  brigade  in  combat  operations.  If  he  were  wise 
enough  to  serve  his  country  and  keep  his  health,  he 
only  signed  the  papers  turned  in  by  an  energetic 
subordinate,  be  he  regular  or  reserve;  but  if  he  were 
mischievous  in  his  insistence  upon  authority,  he 
clogged  the  wheels  of  organization, — which  is  not 
saying  that  he  was  not  a  worthy,  honorable,  and 
agreeable  gentleman,  even  if  he  were  not  of  much 
service  in  building  a  bridge  or  a  warehouse  in  a 
hurry,  or  in  forcing  five  days'  rations  through  to  a 
division  at  the  front.  Considering  these  things,  and 
considering  that  every  man  tied  to  some  humdrum 
task  in  the  S.  O.  S.  wanted  to  be  up  under  fire  instead 
of  one,  two,  or  three  hundred  miles  away  from  the 
guns,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  spirit  of  corps  of 
the  S.  O.  S.  was  not  good.  It  was  well  that  Har- 
bord  arrived  in  July;  or  he  might  have  been  too 
late. 


XXIII 

THE  S.  O.  S.  DRIVES  A  WEDGE 

Depending  on  Tours — The  "  front-sick  "  S.  O.  S. — Harbord  not 
"  Bloise  " — Getting  his  men  together — Building  morale — 
Troops  as  freight — Brest  to  the  front — Construction  figures — 
Atterybury's  job — Sorting  supplies  at  Gievres — Hospitals  and 
the  product  of  war — Feeding  the  front  from  Is-sur-Tille — The 
point  of  the  wedge  at  the  railheads. 

If  one  division  at  the  front  knew  little  of  what 
another  division  was  doing,  how  much  less  its  men 
knew  of  what  was  doing  in  the  capital  of  the 
Services  of  Supply  at  Tours,  that  ancient  city  in  the 
center  of  France.  Grand  Headquarters  in  the  town 
of  Chaumont,  and  Army  Headquarters  in  the  vil- 
lage of  Souilly,  were  relatively  small  office  affairs, 
compared  to  Tours. 

In  place  of  tables  of  barrages,  maps  of  trench 
sectors,  photographs  of  combat  areas,  reports  of 
hills  and  villages  and  lines  of  resistance  taken,  and 
the  examination  of  prisoners,  which  formed  the 
staple  routine  of  a  combat  headquarters,  there  were 
tables  of  the  daily  amount  of  tonnage  and  the  num- 
ber of  troops  disembarked,  maps  of  transportation 
systems  and  railroad  yards,  photographs  of  half- 
finished  quays  and  vast  piles  of  cargo,  blue  prints 
of  the  plans  of  a  network  of  tracks  running  up  to 

391 


392  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  doors  of  hospitals  and  warehouses,  and  reports 
from  foresters  getting  out  timber,  from  commanders 
of  base  sections  and  regulating  stations. 

One  thing,  however,  Tours,  Chaumont,  and 
Souilly,  and  every  other  headquarters  had  in  com- 
mon. That  was  the  call  for  more  guns,  rifles,  cloth- 
ing, shoes,  machine-guns,  ammunition,  engineering 
tools,  balloons,  aeroplanes,  ambulances,  automobiles, 
motor-trucks,  and  other  material,  which  was  passed 
on  from  Souilly  to  Chaumont,  from  Chaumont  to 
[Tours,  and  then  home.  "  We  are  sending  them," 
home  responded. 

"  But  hurry!  "  Tours  cried. 

"  Clear  your  ports,"  home  replied. 

"  Stop  wasting  space !  Fully  load  your  ships," 
said  Tours.  "  Equip  the  troops  in  the  way  we  ask! 
Send  things  in  the  order  we  ask!  Put  them  aboard 
with  some  kind  of  classification.  Don't  throw  steel 
beams  on  top  of  automobile  parts  and  chemical  ap- 
paratus !  Pack  your  sugar  and  flour  in  bags  that 
don't  tear  open." 

If  there  had  been  a  long-distance  telephone  across 
the  Atlantic,  steam  might  have  risen  to  the  surface 
from  the  scorching  messages;  but  the  wires  we  had 
stretched  from  Paris  to  Chaumont  and  to  Tours  and 
to  the  coast  were  used  with  a  prodigality  which  was 
an  evidence  of  the  distrust  of  our  own  postal  system. 

The  barracks  that  had  been  turned  into  offices  at 


THE  S.  O.  S.  DRIVES  A  WEDGE      393 

Tours  had  office  space  equivalent  to  that  of  a  New- 
York  "  sky-scraper "  or  of  the  Army  and  Navy- 
Building  in  Washington.  A  private  was  as  distin- 
guished a  person  in  the  streets  of  Tours  as  in  the 
streets  of  Washington.  Nowhere,  not  even  in  the 
ordnance  department  at  home,  were  more  leather 
puttees  and  boots  with  spurs  circulating  between 
offices  to  maintain  liaison  between  the  combat  units 
and  the  business  end  of  war  than  at  the  general 
offices  of  that  huge  corporation  at  Tours.  The 
officers  worked  hard  all  day  without  feeling  that 
they  had  accomplished  anything  like  as  much  as  they 
would  have  in  their  own  occupation  at  home.  They 
wondered  sometimes  why  so  many  of  them  were 
there.  Everyone  was  thinking  how  to  secure  mate- 
rial and  labor,  and  everyone  had  a  sense  of  strug- 
gling with  his  hands  tied  behind  his  back  against 
walls  of  cotton  wool.  There  was  a  pitiful  look  in 
their  eyes  as  they  stood  before  their  senior  officers, 
pleading  for  a  chance  to  go  to  the  front  and  fight. 
Was  this  sitting  at  your  desk  in  your  spurs  going 
to  war  in  France? 

"  Mother,  take  down  your  service  flag,  your 
son's  in  the  S.  O.  S.,"  was  the  subject  of  a  popular 
army  song  in  France. 

Not  far  from  Tours  was  Blois — we  shall  have 
more  to  say  about  it — where  officers  whose  seniors 
reported  them  unsatisfactory  were  re-classified  and 


394  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

re-assigned.  It  was  the  channel  of  passage  from 
the  front  to  the  S.  O.  S.,  and  for  officers  in  one 
branch  of  the  S.  O.  S.  who  might  do  better  in 
another.  The  danger  of  being  sent  to  Blois  was  a 
shadow  over  every  mind. 

Where  the  fighters  were  "  homesick,"  the  able- 
bodied  workers  in  the  S.  O.  S.  were  "  front-sick  " 
and  "  heart  sick."  All  their  selfish  interest  centered 
in  escaping  the  misfortune  of  having  to  return  home 
without  having  heard  a  shot  fired.  If  they  did  not 
do  well,  there  was  no  chance  of  their  reaching  the 
front;  if  they  did  well,  they  became  invaluable  to 
a  senior  who  refused  to  let  them  go.  Their  rest- 
lessness and  their  feeling  of  general  helplessness  in 
fits  of  despondency  led  to  a  few  cases  of  suicide. 

When  Harbord  came  to  Tours,  it  was  not  by  the 
way  of  Blois.  He  was  no  major-general  of  engi- 
neers or  of  the  Q.  M.  C.  who,  however  specially 
capable  for  his  task,  had  not  been  in  combat  service. 
Here  was  Pershing's  favorite  adjutant,  fresh  from 
victories  in  the  field,  come  back  from  the  limelight 
at  the  front  to  help  "  count  the  beans  and  rustle 
freight."  This  of  itself  gave  him  a  prestige  that 
affected  the  state  of  mind  of  the  whole  organization. 
He  must  be  a  man  of  action;  and  the  S.  O.  S.  wanted 
action.  He  knew  his  regulars  and  his  reserves,  and 
Headquarters  at  Chaumont,  and  the  needs  of  the 
army  from  ship's  hold  to  the  fox-holes.     The  busi- 


THE  S.  O.  S.  DRIVES  A  WEDGE      395 

ness  men  in  uniform,  with  U.  S.  R.  on  their  collars, 
did  not  care  whether  or  not  their  chief  was  a 
Catholic  or  a  Presbyterian.  A  regular  or  a  reserve? 
Was  he  the  man? 

He  found  the  S.  O.  S.  working  in  a  series  of  com- 
partments rather  than  departments.  Though  each 
was  most  conscientiously  striving  for  coordination, 
different  chiefs  were  in  a  mood  that  meant  friction. 
Projects  whose  immediate  completion  was  vital  were 
not  as  far  along  as  those  whose  completion  could 
wait.  Many  were  being  constructed  on  too  elabo- 
rate and  lavish  a  scale  by  chiefs  who  had  won  a  dis- 
proportionate amount  of  authority  to  carry  out 
their  ideas.  They  were  enjoying  the  building  of  a 
plant  that  would  last  for  twenty  years,  when  the 
war  might  be  won  in  another  six  months.  Harbord 
did  what  Pershing  would  have  done  if  the  C.-in-C. 
had  come  to  Tours;  he  was  Pershing's  man,  as  he 
had  said.  He  grasped  his  problem,  made  his  plan, 
and  then  set  his  adjutants  to  driving. 

"  The  first  time  I  went  in  to  see  Harbord,"  said 
one  of  them,  "  I  knew  that  he  knew  his  own  mind, 
and  that  he  was  going  to  tell  me  what  to  do;  and 
that  I  was  going  out  to  do  it  with  the  confidence 
that  he  would  back  me  up.  His  '  no  '  to  my  sugges- 
tions was  as  convincing  as  his  '  yes  '  that  we  were 
to  have  team-play — and  that  he  was  master." 

His  faculty  of  drawing  men  together  was  put  in 


396  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

full  play  in  some  of  the  obvious  methods  of  leader- 
ship which  had  been  somewhat  neglected  in  the 
S.  O.  S.,  where  there  had  evidently  been  a  policy  that 
if  you  honestly  follow  the  regulations  all  will  come 
out  well  in  the  end.  All  the  chiefs  gathered  at  his 
house  once  a  week  for  luncheon,  where  they  found 
one  another  to  be  human.  Instead  of  remaining  at 
Tours,  he  left  routine  to  his  Chief  of  Staff,  and 
spent  three  nights  out  of  four  on  his  railroad  car 
in  going  and  coming,  with  his  office  on  board  always 
in  touch  with  Tours,  while  his  inspections  kept  him 
informed  of  progress  and  aroused  the  enthusiasm 
of  subordinates.  The  feeling  passed  that  you  were 
derelict  if  fate  sent  you  to  work  in  the  S.  O.  S.  The 
S.  O.  S.  began  to  have  the  fighting  spirit  of  corps 
of  the  front — that  of  an  ambitious  business  concern. 
Harbord  had  not  been  a  week  in  command  before 
the  S.  O.  S.  was  feeling  a  new  force  emanating  from 
headquarters.  They  were  calling  to  the  fighters: 
"  We're  with  you.  Take  more  prisoners,  so  that  we 
can  set  them  to  work.  It  means  more  supplies  for 
you."  That  new  commander  who  now  had  under 
him  more  than  four  hundred  thousand  men,  and 
activities  exceeding  those  of  the  largest  of  our 
trusts,  would  make  every  worker  feel  that  he  was 
contributing  his  part,  not  for  his  wage  envelope,  but 
for  winning  the  war  which  had  brought  him  to 
France. 


THE  S.  O.  S.  DRIVES  A  WEDGE      397 

Our  cargo  was  now  flowing  into  every  one  of  the 
ports  of  France  south  of  Cherbourg,  and  over- 
flowing into  Marseilles  in  the  Mediterranean  too. 
The  less  that  had  to  go  to  Marseilles,  the  more 
shipping  time  would  be  saved  from  the  longer  trip 
through  the  Strait  of  Gibraltar.  We  Americans 
like  competition.  The  different  Atlantic  ports  were 
started  on  a  "race  to  Berlin"  unloading  contest; 
the  stevedores  of  the  port  which  won  would  be  the 
first  to  go  home.  No  Americans  in  France  were 
more  homesick  than  our  colored  men.  When  one 
was  asked  whether  he  would  rather  work  at  Bor- 
deaux than  at  Saint-Nazaire,  he  replied:  "Is  Bor- 
deaux any  nearer  home?"  The  "rustling"  of 
cargo  now  became  a  game  in  which  joyous  calls  were 
heard  in  common  urging  against  any  shirking  which 
might  delay  the  return  of  the  workers  to  the  levees 
and  the  cotton  fields  of  their  own  southland.  In 
tune  with  the  Herculean  mechanical  effort  of  the 
giant  American  cranes,  their  Herculean  muscular 
effort  in  its  impetuosity  was  in  imminent  danger  of 
removing  the  stanchions  from  the  ships  as  well  as 
the  cargo.  A  British  skipper  who  thought  that  he 
would  be  two  days  in  unloading,  and  found  that  only 
one  day  was  required,  returned  home  to  say  that  he 
was  lucky  to  escape  without  having  his  ship's  plates 
torn  off  and  started  toward  the  front.  When  bags 
of  sugar  were  piled  so  high  on  one  dock  that  several 


398 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


tons  went  through  the  floor  into  the  water,  it  was  a 
tragedy  to  people  on  sugar  rations  at  home  and  to 
the  sugar-hungry  men  at  the  front,  but  in  the  fever 
of  effort  to  win  the  war  by  supplying  two  million 
men  with  their  requirements  for  battle  it  was  only  an 
incident  of  the  wicked  extravagance  of  war,  which 
led  one  of  the  stevedores  to  say  that  the  sugar  must 
count  in  the  record  as  cargo  discharged,  while  he 
did  not  think  that  it  would  make  that  old  sea  that 
had  made  him  seasick  so  much  sweeter  that  you 
would  notice  it. 

The  impetus  which  the  coming  of  Harbord  gave 
to  the  S.  O.  S.  implies  no  criticism  of  past  accom- 
plishment His  business  was  to  "  go  through,"  as 
it  had  been  at  Belleau  Wood  and  in  the  counter- 
offensive.  An  unfinished  plant,  preparing  for  an 
offensive  in  the  spring  of  19 19,  must  be  made 
equal  to  one  in  the  fall  of  19 18.  There  had 
never  been  any  lack  of  energy  in  the  S.  O.  S.  This 
was  guaranteed  by  our  national  character,  under 
the  whip  of  war.  All  the  while  we  had  been  making 
progress.  The  feeling  of  helplessness  on  the  part 
of  the  workers  had  been  due  to  ambition  thwarted 
in  gaining  the  full  results  of  the  supreme  efforts 
which  they  were  eager  to  exert.  There  had  been  no 
cessation  of  building;  no  cessation  in  striving  to  find 
in  Europe  every  available  article  which  would  save 
transport,  without  reference  to  the  cost — cost  being 


THE  S.  O.  S.  DRIVES  A  WEDGE      399 

the  one  thing  that  never  made  us  hesitate.  Every 
man  accepted  the  idea  that  all  the  money  in  the 
world  was  ours. 

There  was  already  an  end  to  the  confusion  of  the 
early  days  when  the  parts  of  a  piece  of  machinery 
arrived  on  different  ships.  Tables  of  priority  for 
each  month  were  sent  ahead  to  Washington,  which 
might  well  think  that  the  A.  E.  F.  considered  that 
the  War  Department  had  the  magical  power  of 
pulling  anything  that  it  required  out  of  a  hat.  In- 
stead of  sending  his  requisitions  for  material  through 
Chaumont,  Harbord  now  sent  them  direct  to  the 
War  Department;  he  was  the  great  administrative 
agent  for  the  chief  of  G-4  at  Chaumont,  who 
coordinated  combat  and  supply,  holding  the  balance 
between  the  demands  of  the  front  and  the  where- 
withal to  meet  them.  There  was  increasing  coordi- 
nation at  home,  too,  under  the  indomitable  authority 
of  General  March. 

The  wedges  which  our  divisions  were  driving 
down  the  walls  of  the  Aire  and  the  Meuse  rivers 
and  against  the  Kriemhilde  Stellung  were  only  a 
part  of  the  giant  wedge  of  the  supply  system,  with 
its  bases  as  broad  as  the  United  States,  which  nar- 
rowed to  the  breadth  of  the  Atlantic  Coast  of 
France  from  Brest  to  Bordeaux.  Most  of  our 
troops  arrived  at  Brest,  where  the  harbor  was  deep 
enough  for  the  draught  of  the  mighty  German  liners 


4oo  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

which  had  been  transformed  into  transports.  Navy 
blue  and  army  khaki  swarmed  on  the  docks  where 
our  sea  and  land  forces  met.  Our  destroyers  sped 
out  of  the  harbor  to  disappear  on  the  horizon,  and 
reappear  as  the  protective  scurrying  guards  of  the 
transports  which  they  brought  safe  into  port  before 
they  slipped  out  to  sea  again,  to  see  more  freighters 
safe  through  the  submarine  zone  under  their  agile 
husbanding. 

During  the  height  of  that  transatlantic  excursion 
season  of  ours  the  men  on  board  slept  in  three  shifts 
of  eight  hours  each;  they  had  two  meals  a  day. 
Their  warm  bodies  were  close-packed,  breathing 
into  one  another's  faces,  in  tiers  of  low-ceilinged 
rooms,  for  from  seven  to  ten  days,  after  the  healthy 
life  of  the  training  camps  which  had  accustomed 
their  lungs  to  fresh  air.  When  the  transport  passed 
into  the  harbor  mouth,  and  the  submarine  danger 
was  over,  as  ants  might  swarm  out  of  their  runways 
to  the  top  of  a  hill  they  swarmed  on  deck,  where 
first-  and  second-class  passengers  had  sauntered  and 
promenaded,  in  solid  masses  of  khaki,  who  formed 
the  most  valuable  and  superior  first-class  passengers 
America  had  ever  sent  to  Europe.  They  had  ar- 
rived. They  made  the  harbor  echo  with  calls  and 
hurrahs.  Theirs  had  been  a  passage  which  money 
could  not  buy  or  would  want  to  buy  for  more  than 
one  experience ;  a  passage  not  for  pay  or  adventure, 


THE  S.O.S.  DRIVES  A  WEDGE      401 

whose  glamour  was  a  sight  of  the  sea  and  of 
France  and  of  all  they  had  read  about  the  war. 
They  were  man-power,  man-power  by  its  thousands 
and  millions,  formed  in  a  common  mold  no  less 
than  egg-grenades,  their  clothes  cut  according  to  the 
same  pattern  no  less  than  their  gas  masks,  the  man- 
power which  we  had  to  give  if  we  did  lack  artillery 
and  aeroplanes,  automata  who  were  sentient  parts  of 
a  machine  responding  to  the  mechanism  of  orders 
rather  than  of  levers.  Equipped,  disciplined, 
trained,  hardened,  the  preparatory  processes  of  the 
training  camps  sent  them  to  us  for  the  final  processes 
in  France. 

Mighty  lighters  hurried  alongside  the  transport, 
whose  time  must  not  be  wasted  while  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  other  passengers  waited  three  thou- 
sand miles  away.  Swiftly,  more  swiftly  than  any 
but  human  cargo  could  be  unloaded,  they  were  dis- 
embarked, the  decks  and  the  hold  becoming  strangely 
empty  with  the  resounding  footsteps  of  the  officers 
and  crew  in  place  of  the  hum  of  conversation  and 
the  atmosphere  of  human  bodies  crowded  together. 

Their  confinement  normally  and  charitably  re- 
quired that  stiffened  bodies  and  minds  and  suffocated 
lungs  should  have  a  period  of  relaxation  and  exer- 
cise. This  indeed  was  a  part  of  the  original  plans; 
but  now  when  original  plans  had  gone  by  the  board 
in  feeding  in  men  to  make  the  present  the  decisive 


402 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


offensive,  though  horses  must  be  given  rest,  it  was 
found  that  men  who  had  been  through  a  regime  to 
toughen  their  human  adaptability  for  what  four- 
legged  animals  could  not  endure,  could  do  without 
such  consideration  when  they  were  needed  as  the 
minute  men  of  the  Meuse-Argonne  battle.  Shipped 
as  freight  from  camp  to  pier,  from  pier  on  to  trans- 
port, and  then  from  Brest  across  France,  which  they 
saw  only  through  the  doors  of  box  cars  where  they 
were  packed  as  close  as  on  board  the  transports,  the 
one  idea  at  every  point  was  to  hurry  them  along  until 
they  were  delivered  f.  o.  b.  at  the  front.  There, 
after  coming  from  comfortable  barracks,  after  the 
devitalizing  closeness  of  transport  and  train,  in  a 
merciless  climatic  change,  they  could  remain  in  the 
fox-holes  in  the  chill  penetrating  mists  and  rains  as 
they  were  still  being  hurried  against  the  enemy,  until 
death  or  wounds  or  "  flu  "  or  pneumonia  or  the 
dizziness  of  fatigue  reported  them  as  "  expended." 
Caring  for  the  passage  of  this  human  stream  from 
the  ports  to  the  front  was  the  first  duty  of  the 
S.  O.  S.  The  next  was  to  follow  it  up  with  supplies. 
Wherever  men  were  they  must  be  fed.  La  Pallice 
and  La  Rochelle  were  also  being  used;  but  the  main 
Atlantic  cargo  ports  were  Saint-Nazaire  and  Bor- 
deaux. Ships  moved  with  a  processional  regularity 
to  their  places  alongside  the  docks  we  had  built. 
Our  warehouses  stretched  out  over  the  sandy  reaches 


THE  S.  O.  S.  DRIVES  A  WEDGE      403 

where  an  occasional  vine  appeared  between  spur 
tracks  on  the  site  of  the  vineyards  for  which  we  were 
paying,  and  which  hardly  brought  as  much  wealth  to 
Bordeaux  as  the  money  we  were  spending.  Broken 
bags  of  flour,  and  broken  crates  of  canned  goods, 
were  piled  in  separate  warehouses;  as  they  could  not 
stand  the  journey  to  the  front,  they  were  used  to 
feed  the  legions  of  the  S.  O.  S.  For  there  was  an 
army  larger  than  Grant  had  in  the  Appomattox  cam- 
paign to  be  supplied  between  the  ports  and  the 
front.  Fields  were  filled  with  the  parts  of  automo- 
biles and  trucks.  Assembled,  they  started  in  long 
convoys  across  France  to  Saint-Mihiel  or  the  Ar- 
gonne,  their  drivers  having  a  tour  of  the  chateau 
country  before  passing  over  the  Cote  d'Or  of  Bur- 
gundy. All  the  parts  of  the  railroad  locomotives 
and  cars  arriving  were  assembled  in  the  vast  shops 
which  we  had  built  and  fitted  out  with  machinery 
according  to  the  latest  American  models. 

We  were  supposed  to  have,  but  never  had,  ninety 
days'  routine  supplies  in  France  for  all  our  forces 
in  France.  Of  these  forty-five  days  were  to  be  in 
the  warehouses  at  the  base  ports.  Sometimes  trains 
were  loaded  at  the  ports  and  run  straight  through  to 
the  front.  Normally,  there  were  three  changes  in 
transit.  At  our  service  were  all  the  arterial  rail- 
roads of  central  France,  and  all  the  locomotives  and 
cars  that  the  French  could  spare,  and  all  the  broken- 


404 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


down  French  rolling  stock  which  our  mechanics  could 
repair.  Possibly  no  denial  can  ever  overtake  the 
report  that  we  built  a  railroad  clear  across  France; 
but  we  did  nothing  of  the  kind,  and  contemplated 
nothing  of  the  kind.  We  built  spur  tracks  and  sid- 
ings and  cut-offs;  if  all  the  track  we  laid,  figured  a 
statistician  in  G-4  at  Chaumont,  had  been  in  line,  it 
would  have  reached  from  Saint-Nazaire  across 
France  and  Germany  to  the  Russian  frontier. 

All  our  building  construction,  if  it  had  been  con- 
centrated in  one  standard  barrack  building,  would 
extend  from  Saint-Nazaire  as  far  as  the  Elbe  river 
in  Germany.  We  erected  and  put  in  operation 
18,543  American  railroad  cars,  and  1,496  American 
locomotives.  Besides  producing  enough  firewood  to 
form  an  unbroken  wall  around  three  sides  of  France, 
one  meter  high  and  one  meter  broad,  we  sawed 
189,564,000  feet  of  lumber,  2,728,000  standard 
gauge  ties,  923,560  narrow  gauge  ties,  and  1,739,000 
poles  and  pit  props.  If  all  the  motor  vehicles  we 
brought  to  France  were  put  end  to  end,  they  would 
form  a  convoy  two  hundred  and  ninety  miles  in 
length.  On  the  day  that  the  armistice  was  signed 
we  were  operating  1,400  miles  of  light  railway,  of 
which  1,090  miles  had  been  captured  from  the 
Germans.     They  handled  860,652  tons  of  material. 

These  figures,  put  together  in  a  paragraph  in  pass- 
ing) give  an  idea  of  the  magnitude  of  the  business 


THE  S.  O.  S.  DRIVES  A  WEDGE      405 

which  the  army  of  the  S.  O.  S.  was  conducting.  It 
was  an  army  which  knew  no  excitement  in  war  except 
work.  The  problem  of  sea  transport  which  faced 
our  ports  at  home  was  no  more  trying  than  the  prob- 
lem of  railroad  transport  from  our  ports  in  France; 
liaison  between  combat  units  in  action  no  more  try- 
ing than  the  liaison  between  our  American  railroad 
men  with  their  American  training  and  the  French 
railroad  system.  We  were  used  to  long  distances 
and  long  hauls;  the  French,  in  a  country  no  larger 
than  some  of  our  states,  were  used  to  short  distances 
and  short  hauls.  Impatient  at  first  with  their  meth- 
ods, we  saw  how  they  had  come  to  be  applied  in 
France.  Amazed  at  first  at  ours,  the  French  came 
to  appreciate  how  well  our  long  heavy  trains  suited 
the  wholesale  business  of  war.  The  French  seemed 
unsystematic,  yet  their  worn  locomotives  and  rickety 
cars  managed  to  carry  on  an  enormous  traffic. 
When  we  applied  our  home  tracer  system  for  the 
first  time  on  the  railroads  of  France,  the  central 
offices  might  know  the  location  of  every  car  under 
their  authority. 

Our  railroad  men,  under  Brigadier-General 
W.  W.  Atterbury,  our  railroad  general,  used  to 
having  at  home  all  the  supplies  they  needed,  made 
victory  possible  by  the  way  in  which  they  patched 
and  contrived  in  their  energy  and  resource  to  meet 
the  demands  of  the  months  of  September  and  Oc- 


406 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


tober,  which  were  far  beyond  their  calculations. 
They  share  the  honors  due  to  our  pioneer  railroad 
builders  in  the  early  days  of  the  west,  while  they 
exemplified  the  type  of  men  who  operate  our  great 
systems  of  today,  whether  the  engineer,  the  fireman 
or  shop  mechanic,  the  veteran  superintendent,  or  the 
young  fellow  just  out  of  a  technical  school.  I  won- 
der no  less  how  they  were  able,  with  the  rolling 
stock  at  their  command,  to  forward  all  the  tonnage 
we  required  at  the  front,  than  I  wonder  how  we  were 
able  to  take  some  of  the  positions  of  the  whale-back. 

In  his  office  at  Tours,  surrounded  by  his  adjutants, 
who,  though  in  khaki,  were  railroad  men  in  every 
word  and  thought,  and  in  the  discipline  which  our 
home  systems  have  established  in  webbing  our  coun- 
try, Brigadier-General  Atterbury  had  a  command 
which  in  numbers  belonged  to  a  major-general.  His 
(discipline  was  that  of  a  leadership  which  won 
loyalty.  In  all  his  perplexing  situations,  when  he 
Was  striving  for  authority  and  material  for  an  under- 
taking so  strictly  technical,  he  never  passed  on  any 
animus  to  a  subordinate.  It  is  something  for  an 
officer  to  return  from  France  with  the  respect  which 
he  had  from  his  subordinates. 

The  train  that  started  on  the  steel  trail  across 
France,  leaving  behind  the  hectic  labor  and  the  piles 
of  cargo  and  the  warehouses  built  and  building, 
when  it  passed  out  of  the  region  of  the  base  sections 


THE  S.  O.  S.  DRIVES  A  WEDGE      407 

came  to  the  intermediate  zone.  In  the  regular  rou- 
tine it  lost  its  entity  when  it  ascended  the  "  hump  ' 
which  we  had  built  at  Gievres, — that  American 
hump,  singularly  characteristic  of  our  system  of 
labor-saving  organization.  Every  car  was  loaded 
with  material  belonging  to  some  branch  of  the 
army.  One  by  one  they  were  "  dropped  "  down  the 
incline,  each  being  switched  to  a  track,  as  its  down- 
grade momentum,  subject  to  the  brakes,  sent  it — • 
with  the  facility  of  letters  tossed  into  mail  bags  by 
a  railway  mail  clerk — where  its  contents  belonged, 
whether  to  the  door  of  an  engineer,  an  ordnance,  a 
signal  corps,  a  medical  corps,  or  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  or 
Red  Cross  warehouse,  while  the  meat  trains  or 
others  with  perishable  cargo  went  to  our  vast  cold- 
storage  plant.  From  the  "  hump  "  you  looked  out 
over  a  city  of  warehouses,  of  barracks,  and  other 
structures,  with  its  guardhouse,  its  clubs,  its  motion- 
picture  theaters,  its  military  policemen,  under  a 
colonel  who  was  mayor,  common  council,  and  king 
— all  having  been  built  in  the  open  fields  as  a  way 
station  from  the  New  York  docks  to  the  front. 

Here  at  Gievres  other  trains  were  made  up  to 
continue  the  journey  forward  in  answer  to  the  daily 
requisitions  of  the  regulating  stations  upon  the  inter- 
mediate reserves.  War  being  a  one-way  business, 
all  expenditure  and  no  income,  all  loaded  cars  were 
going  one  way  except  those  bringingjumber  and  ties 


40  8 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


that  we  were  cutting  from  the  forests  for  construc- 
tion, salvage  from  the  battlefield,  broken  trucks,  and 
vehicles — and  the  hospital  trains.  Here  prevision 
must  be  most  sure.  Man  was  the  most  valuable 
piece  of  machinery;  his  repair  the  most  important  of 
all  repairs.  We  had  enormous  hospitals  in  the 
intermediate  zone  as  well  as  at  the  base  ports;  and 
indeed  all  over  central  and  southern  France.  The 
medical  corps  used  great  hotels  and  other  buildings 
to  care  for  the  hosts  of  broken,  gassed,  exhausted, 
sick  men  from  the  Meuse-Argonne  battle;  but  when 
we  had  to  build  we  ran  out  spur  tracks — deep  was 
our  faith  in  spur  tracks — into  open  fields  upon 
which  rose  cities  of  standardized  unit  hospital  build- 
ings, all  of  a  color,  all  of  a  pattern,  and  also  operat- 
ing rooms  and  Y.  M.  C.  A.  clubs  and  theaters,  under 
the  autocracy  of  some  regular  surgeon  who  looked 
up  from  his  desk  at  the  chart  on  the  wall  showing 
the  number  of  his  patients  and  the  number  of  vacant 
beds.  The  hospital  trains  ran  up  on  the  spur  tracks, 
and  hobbling  wounded  descended,  and  wounded  who 
could  not  hobble  were  carried  on  stretchers  to  their 
beds — each  a  card-indexed  automaton,  no  less  .than 
when  he  entered  the  training  camp,  as  he  would  re- 
main until  he  was  demobilized  or  buried  in  France. 
So  the  trains  of  munitions  passed  the  trains  laden 
with  the  products  of  war,  the  knowledge  of  whose 
sacrifice  is  the  only  value  of  war.     Right  and  left 


THE  S.  O.  S.  DRIVES  A  WEDGE      409 

through  the  intermediate  zone,  from  Orleans  to  the 
Mediterranean,  were  more  repair  shops,  remount 
depots,  training  camps  for  aviators,  tank  crews, 
machine-gunners  and  carrier  pigeons,  each  worker 
striving  for  the  same  purpose  that  shoveled  the  coal 
into  the  locomotive  firebox  or  slipped  a  shell  into  a 
gun  or  a  cartridge  into  a  rifle.  At  Is-sur-Tille,  near 
Dijon,  was  another  "  hump,"  which  looked  down  on 
what  seemed  a  training  camp  in  its  streets  of  mud: 
for  there  was  mud  in  the  S.  O.  S.  as  well  as  at  the 
front — mud  kept  soft  by  the  damp  atmosphere 
when  autumn  rain  was  not  falling,  and  deep  by  the 
trampling  of  many  feet.  Here,  as  at  Gievres,  the 
train  sent  its  cars  on  their  way  to  the  warehouses 
to  which  their  contents  belonged;  here  you  felt  at 
first  hand  the  breath  of  the  front  in  all  its  hot  and 
pressing  demands;  here  was  the  largest  bakery,  with 
cement  floors  and  all  up-to-date  apparatus,  directed 
by  the  head  of  one  of  our  large  bakeries  at  home, 
rolling  out  the  round  loaves  with  the  ease  of  peas 
shelled  from  a  pod.  All  night  long,  as  at  Gievres 
and  at  the  base  ports,  the  switch  engines  coughed 
forth  their  growls  as  they  shunted  cars,  and  the 
laborers  worked  at  loading  and  unloading.  The 
officer  in  charge  in  his  little  office  was  directing  as 
insistent  an  excursion  business  as  ever  fell  to  the  lot 
of  man.  His  nightmare,  and  the  nightmare  of  all 
the  regulating  officers  of  the  S.  O.  S.,  was  moving 


410  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

cars.  Every  hour  a  car  was  needlessly  idle  was 
waste.  This  called  for  labor,  and  more  labor — for 
more  warehouse  space,  for  more  locomotives,  for 
more  sidings;  but  as  they  were  not  forthcoming, 
why,  man  and  machine  must  be  made  to  do  more 
work.  The  excess  strain  on  either  was  not  consid- 
ered. The  pressure  was  the  same  as  that  for  the 
relief  of  a  city  stricken  by  fire  or  earthquake. 

Beyond  Is-sur-Tille  at  Saint-Dizier  was  another, 
a  supplementary,  regulating  station  for  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  battle,  which  during  the  battle  fed,  apart 
from  the  troops  in  the  Saint-Mihiel  and  other  sec- 
tors, 645,000  men  and  115,000  animals.  Regulat- 
ing stations  did  the  detail,  while  Gievres  and  the 
base  ports  did  the  wholesale.  They  saw  that  each 
division  received  its  daily  rations  of  food  and  am- 
munition. Each  division  had  its  "  cut  in  "  of  cars, 
with  all  its  daily  supplies,  which  was  made  up  a  day 
in  advance  and  sent  to  the  divisional  railhead. 
Knowing  the  needs  of  the  divisions,  a  regulating  sta- 
tion sent  its  requisition  back  to  the  big  warehouse 
centers,  while  it  always  tried  to  keep  on  hand  a  small 
amount  of  all  articles  likely  to  be  needed  in  haste. 
When  we  were  swinging  our  divisions  around  for  the 
Chateau-Thierry  emergency,  one  division  had  seven 
railheads  in  eight  days;  its  trains  were  on  hand  on 
each  occasion.  They  must  be;  otherwise  the  divi- 
sions went  hungry.     All  other  demands  must  yield 


THE  S.O.S.  DRIVES  A  WEDGE      411 

to  the  routine  which  brings  the  morning  milk  and 
the  grocer's  boy  to  the  kitchen  door. 

At  the  railhead  you  felt  not  only  the  breath  of 
battle  but  that  throbbing  suspense  and  intensity  of 
purpose  which  is  associated  with  men  in  action. 
Here  came  the  empty  trucks  and  wagons  from  the 
front,  and  the  ambulances  traveling  in  their  convoys 
on  the  crowded  roads  up  to  the  zone  of  fire,  while 
men  worked  in  darkness.  Here  the  wedge  from 
home  was  narrowing  under  the  hammer  strokes, 
until  you  could  feel  it  splitting  the  oak — the  hammer 
strokes  of  the  hundred  millions,  their  energy,  their 
prayers  and  thoughts. 

Those  empty  trucks  seemed  ever  hungry,  open 
mouths,  the  mute  expression  of  the  call  for  more, 
and  still  more,  of  everything  with  which  to  keep 
up  the  driving — more  replacements  as  well  as 
material. 

When  the  front  wanted  anything,  it  was  wanted 
immediately.  Improvise  it,  purloin  it,  beg  for  it, 
but  send  it,  was  the  command  that  admitted  of  no 
refusal.  If  this  officer  could  not  get  it,  put  another 
in  his  place  who  could.  Officers  when  they  lay  down 
for  a  few  hours'  sleep  had  their  telephones  at  their 
elbow,  ready  as  firemen  to  answer  the  call.  Men 
worked  until  the  doctors  ordered  them  to  the  hos- 
pital— that  they  must  do.  They  could  do  no  more. 
The  S.  O.  S.  could  not  send  guns  or  tanks  when  it 


412 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


had  none  from  home ;  but  American  resourcefulness 
surpassed  its  own  dreams  of  probabilities.  Harbord 
could  well  say  to  Pershing:  "I've  straightened  out 
things  in  the  S.  O.  S." 


XXIV 

REGULARS  AND  RESERVES 

Isolation  of  West  Pointers — College  graduates  not  dissociated 
from  the  community — The  monastic  ideal  of  the  founder  of 
West  Point — And  the  caste  ideal — The  officer  a  cleat  on  the 
escalator  of  promotion — Out  of  contact  with  America — Five 
years  to  make  a  soldier — A  clan  tradition — A  blank  check  to 
the  regulars. 

Before  our  entry  into  the  war  our  busy  people 
had  occasional  reminders  that  we  had  a  United 
States  Military  Academy  for  training  army  officers. 
Its  gray  walls  on  the  bluffs  at  West  Point  were  one 
of  the  sights  of  the  Hudson  valley  to  passengers  on 
river  steamers.  There  was  an  annual  football  game 
between  the  West  Point  and  Annapolis  cadets.  As 
every  schoolboy  knew,  both  teams  were  better  than 
those  of  the  small  eastern  colleges,  but  not  so  good 
as  those  of  the  large  eastern  colleges.  The  cadets 
were  in  the  inaugural  parade.  Their  marching 
thrilled  observers  with  an  excellence  which,  however, 
is  always  expected  from  professionals,  whether  ball- 
players, billiardists,  actors,  pugilists,  circus  per- 
formers, opera  singers,  or  poets.  It  was  the  cadets' 
business  to  march  well.  Of  course  they  were  supe- 
rior to  amateurs  in  their  own  line.     Investigations 

413 


4i4  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

of  "  hazing  "  had  also  at  one  time  attracted  wide 
attention  to  the  Academy.  Some  of  us  were  horrified, 
and  others  of  us  amused — still  others  disinterested 
as  long  as  they  did  not  have  to  take  the  dose  them- 
selves— at  reports  of  first-class  men  having  to  swal- 
low large  draughts  of  tabasco  sauce  in  order  to 
toughen  their  stomachs  for  the  horrors  of  war. 

A  community  which  sent  only  an  occasional  boy 
to  West  Point  sent  many  boys  to  civil  colleges.  I 
was  one  of  the  boys  who  went  to  a  civil  college,  and 
knew  how  we  felt  in  our  time.  We  returned  at  the 
end  of  our  freshman  year  with  the  attitude  of  "  How 
little  they  know !  "  as  we  looked  around  our  native 
town.  During  our  college  career  we  spent  our  holi- 
days in  home  surroundings,  which  formed  a  break 
in  college  influences.  At  the  end  of  our  senior  year 
we  had  the  "  rah!  rah!  "  spirit  of  class,  alma  mater, 
and  college  fraternity,  and  a  feeling  that  the  men 
who  went  to  the  principal  collegiate  football  rival 
were  of  a  low  caste.  We  were  graduated  full  of 
theories  and  wisdom,  and  set  out  to  earn  a  living 
and  incidentally  to  demonstrate  how  little  "  they  " 
really  knew.  By  the  time  we  were  able  to  earn  a 
living  we  concluded  that  "  they  "  had  known  more 
than  we  thought. 

In  fact,  we  ourselves  now  belonged  to  the 
"  theys  "  struggling  in  the  great  competition  of  pro- 
fessional and  industrial  life.     We  met  men  who  had 


REGULARS  AND  RESERVES         415 

not  been  to  college,  who  were  the  betters  of  college 
men.  Having  left  college  sworn  to  keep  the 
fraternity  first  in  our  hearts  and  to  write  frequently 
to  our  friends,  other  interests  and  other  acquaint- 
ances took  our  time.  Meeting  men  from  the  deadly 
football  rival,  we  found  that  they  were  the  same 
kind  of  men  as  ourselves.  We  went  to  the  annual 
football  game  and  to  class  reunions  where  the  old 
spirit  revived  transiently,  and  old  memories  were 
recalled  as  we  met  our  old  mates;  but  we  found  that 
we  had  not  as  much  in  common  with  them,  beyond 
memories,  as  we  had  had  in  our  youth.  They 
had  gone  into  different  occupations,  developed  differ- 
ent tastes,  and  enjoyed  varying  measures  of  success. 
Some  had  become  rich  and  famous;  some  had  gone 
into  politics;  some  had  achieved  respectable  citizen- 
ship and  some  had  failed.  Jones  at  the  head  of  the 
class  had  not  done  well;  Smith  at  the  foot  had  be- 
come a  power  in  the  world.  Robinson,  who  had 
not  been  a  remarkable  scholar  in  his  youth,  was  now 
a  great  professor.  Brown,  who  had  been  a  most 
serious  student,  was  interested  only  in  his  golf  score; 
Higgins,  who  had  barely  escaped  expulsion  for 
frivolity,  was  a  serious  judge.  Larkin,  who  had  been 
pointed  out  as  a  born  leader  of  men  at  twenty-one, 
was  a  follower  of  meager  influence.  All  this  proved 
that  college  was  only  a  curriculum  in  studies  and 
basic  character-building,  while  development  came  in 


4i 6  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

after  life  from  inherent  vitality,  persistence,  latent 
talent,  health,  environment,  and  innumerable  in- 
fluences. 

The  occasional  West  Pointer  who  returned  home 
at  the  end  of  his  second  year  with  squared  shoulders 
and  chin  drawn  in  had  become  far  more  dissociated 
from  his  surroundings  than  the  freshman  of  a  civil 
college.  He  too  was  thinking,  "  How  little  they 
know !  '  After  his  graduation,  except  for  a  rare 
visit  to  his  parents,  he  had  ceased  to  be  a  part  of 
the  home  community.  He  was  here  and  there  at 
army  posts,  and  serving  in  the  Philippines.  It  was 
not  unlikely  that  he  had  been  a  poor  boy.  I  have 
known  instances  where  boys  had  to  borrow  the 
money  to  travel  to  West  Point.  Many  of  the  ap- 
pointees had  no  particular  call  to  the  profession  of 
arms;  but  they  knew  and  their  parents  knew  that 
from  the  day  he  entered  the  academy  a  cadet  would 
not  require  a  cent  from  home  or  have  to  "  work  his 
way,"  or  win  a  scholarship.  The  nation  took  him 
under  its  wing.  In  order  to  receive  an  appointment 
it  was  well  to  know  the  local  Congressman  or  a  Sen- 
ator, even  in  these  days  of  competitive  examinations. 

The  appointment  of  poor  boys  to  be  officers  had 
the  appeal  of  democracy.  It  was  a  system  devised 
in  the  days  following  the  Revolution,  when  in  Eng- 
land commissions  in  the  red-coats  were  bought  and 
sold,  and  only  the  sons  of  the  gentry  became  officers. 


REGULARS  AND  RESERVES         417 

West  Point,  now  well  over  a  hundred  years  old, 
was  at  first  an  engineering  school,  but  the  real 
founder  of  the  academy  of  to-day  was  Sylvanus 
Thayer,  who  had  Prussian  ideas  of  the  same  kind 
as  von  Steuben,  drillmaster  of  the  Revolutionary 
armies.  He  was  of  the  old  school  of  martinets,  who 
proposed  to  establish  in  the  midst  of  this  pioneering, 
lawless,  new  country  an  institution  where  pupils 
could  be  caught  young  and  so  disciplined  and  formed 
that  they  would  be  worthy  of  the  strictest  European 
military  tradition.  In  return  for  this  privilege,  the 
Congressman  was  to  have  the  power  of  appoint- 
ment. Congress  accepted  the  idea.  It  did  not  inter- 
fere with  the  militia  organizations,  or  any  group  of 
amateurs,  or  the  conviction  that  any  man  in  his  shirt- 
sleeves and  with  a  squirrel  rifle  was  the  equal  of  any 
European  regular.  At  the  same  time  it  trained 
some  really  professional  officers,  who  might  become 
generals  in  time  of  war.  Moreover,  it  was  demo- 
cratic; this  was  the  compelling  argument.  America 
was  opportunity;  a  poor  boy  might  become  a  gen- 
eral; the  Congressman  might  select  the  poor  boy 
who  was  to  be  a  general. 

The  founder  was  a  wise  man  and  a  stern  one.  He 
set  the  tradition  which  endured;  he  put  the  cadets 
into  the  uniform  which  we  see  in  the  cuts  of  Welling- 
ton's veterans  who  fought  at  Waterloo,  and  which 
they  were  to  wear  for  a  hundred  years.     He  put  a 


4i 8  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

stigma  upon  being  "  dropped  "  from  the  Academy, 
which  was  a  counter  to  family  and  political  influence 
for  a  softer  course.  Doubtless  he  foresaw  that 
when  the  graduates  were  through  with  these  hard 
four  years,  they  would  be  a  unit  for  its  continuance, 
particularly  as  they  had  not  to  go  through  it  again. 
He  had  no  illusions  about* democracy ;  he  knew  that 
democracy  was  the  curse  of  military  discipline.  He 
believed  in  an  officer  caste;  there  could  not  be  a 
good  army  without  caste.  If  he  could  not  have 
students  from  families  belonging  to  the  officer  caste 
according  to  European  traditions,  he  would  make 
them  gentlemen.  They  would  be  taught  to  dance, 
and  initiated  into  a  code  of  officer  ethics  and  eti- 
quette. In  later  times  the  Point  had  its  polo  team, 
a  luxury  which  only  rich  youth  could  afford. 

This  did  not  imply  any  relaxation  of  that  severe 
regime  in  which  theoretically  only  the  fittest  were  to 
survive.  The  cadets  might  not  smoke  cigarettes  or 
drink;  they  might  not  go  skylarking  to  neighboring 
towns.  Their  every  hour  of  drill,  study,  and  recrea- 
tion was  counted.  Far  from  the  freedom  of  the 
elective  course,  every  mind  and  body  was  filled  into 
a  mold  a  century  old.  Three-fourths  of  the  study 
was  scholastic;  only  a  fourth,  outside  the  drill,  could 
be  classed  as  strictly  military:  for  the  cadets  were 
supposed  to  receive  the  equivalent  of  a  collegiate 
education   at  the   same  time   that  they  were  being 


REGULARS  AND  RESERVES         419 

trained  to  be  officers.  With  few  exceptions  their 
instructors  were  former  graduates,  called  in  from 
service  with  the  army.  Some  of  these  might  be 
rusty,  compared  to  the  experts  of  civil  colleges,  who 
gave  their  lives  to  specializing  in  one  branch ;  but 
civilian  teachers  could  not  supply  military  discipline 
and  atmosphere. 

The  boy  who  went  to  West  Point  was  an  average 
boy.  At  an  impressionable  age  he  entered  a  world 
as  isolated  and  self-centered  as  that  of  a  monastery. 
The  effects  of  college  and  fraternity  spirit  were 
many  times  intensified.  He  had  almost  no  oppor- 
tunities of  renewing  the  associations  of  civil  life; 
all  was  of  the  army,  for  the  army,  and  by  the  army. 
Though  he  served  in  the  ranks  as  a  cadet,  he  never 
served  in  the  ranks  as  a  soldier.  His  "  How  little 
they  know !  "  was  not  to  suffer  the  shock  of  com- 
petitive strife  with  the  millions  of  other  boys  whom 
he  was  to  lead  as  a  general.  His  quality  of  leader- 
ship had  been  tested  only  in  marks  on  drill  and 
scholarship. 

When  he  was  graduated,  he  became  an  officer, 
his  position  assured  for  life.  The  fellows  of  his 
school  days  who  went  into  professions  had  to  have 
their  way  paid,  or  to  work  their  way,  through  col- 
lege and  professional  school,  and  then  slowly  build 
up  a  practice.  All  this  the  West  Pointer  had  free, 
as  the  gift  of  his  country,  in  the  name  of  democracy. 


420  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

His  income  would  be  more  than  equal  to  that  of  the 
average  graduate  of  our  leading  law  and  medical 
schools,  with  the  certainty  of  sufficient  pay  to  care 
for  his  old  age  when  he  was  retired.  Once  an  officer, 
he  could  lean  back  on  his  oars  if  he  chose, — the 
hardest  work  of  his  career  having  been  finished  when 
other  boys  are  beginning  theirs.  He  became  a  cleat 
on  the  slow-moving  escalator  of  promotion,  waiting 
on  the  death  and  retirement  of  seniors  or  the  ex- 
pansion of  the  army.  There  were  other  cleats  than 
those  with  the  West  Point  marking,  those  of  officers 
who  had  worked  their  way  up  from  the  ranks,  and 
a  larger  class  which  had  come  in  through  examina- 
tion; but  the  West  Point  spirit  was  dominant.  The 
West  Pointer  was  a  West  Pointer;  his  tradition  the 
tradition  of  the  army. 

Superb  of  health,  and  hardened  of  physique,  the 
graduate,  I  should  add,  need  not  continue  the  West 
Point  regime  after  his  graduation.  He  might  neg- 
lect exercise  to  the  point  that  led  President  Roose- 
velt to  issue  his  order  compelling  tests  of  physical 
endurance,  which  led  to  such  an  uproar  in  army 
circles.  Roosevelt  proceeded  on  the  sound  prin- 
ciple that  capacity  for  enormous  and  sudden  physical 
strain  is  a  prime  requisite — as  the  Great  War  so 
abundantly  proved — for  leading  infantry  on  marches 
and  in  battle,  and  for  sleeping  on  the  ground. 

Occasionally  a  West  Pointer  may  have  had  some 


REGULARS  AND  RESERVES         421 

of  his  illusions  about  "  they "  amended  by  his 
colonel;  but  anything  like  a  full  revelation  was  out 
of  the  question.  The  young  lieutenant,  when  he 
went  to  an  army  post  at  home  or  in  the  Philippines, 
found  himself  in  the  same  isolated  world  of  army 
thought  and  associations.  The  troops  he  com- 
manded hardly  put  him  in  touch  with  the  average 
of  citizens.  They  were  men  who,  in  a  country 
which  did  not  feel  the  call  to  military  service,  en- 
listed for  $17.50  a  month  and  the  security  of  army 
life,  oftener  than  for  adventure  or  ambition.  Be- 
tween them  and  their  officers  there  was  as  broad  a 
gulf  as  between  any  officer  class  in  Europe  and  their 
soldiers.  All  standards  were  set  on  the  time  required 
to  drill  these  recruits  and  form  them  in  the  regular 
army  mould. 

When  officers  met,  ten  or  twenty  years  after  grad- 
uation or  receiving  their  commissions,  they  found 
none  of  the  changes  of  fortune  which  alumni  of 
civil  colleges  found.  Everyone  was  in  the  same 
relative  rank  as  when  he  became  a  second  lieu- 
tenant. The  army  opposed  promotion  by  selection, 
as  that  meant  "  political  "  influence  and  favoritism. 
Promotion  by  selection  was  against  the  law,  except 
that  the  President  might,  if  he  chose,  make  a  second 
lieutenant  a  brigadier  or  major-general  with  the 
consent  of  the  Senate.  The  promotion  of  Wood, 
Bell,  Funston,  and  Pershing  to  be  brigadiers  over 


422  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  heads  of  many  seniors  led  to  no  end  of  ill- 
feeling  in  the  army,  which  made  these  ambitious 
and  able  officers  the  victims  of  an  unpopularity 
which  only  time  and  the  retirement  of  older  officers 
could  overcome. 

They  had  all  distinguished  themselves  in  the 
Spanish  War,  which  had  awakened  us  to  a  realiza- 
tion that  though  we  had  excellent  regiments,  which 
exhibited  all  the  sturdy  and  dependable  qualities  of 
the  regulars,  we  had  no  army  organization.  Under 
Secretary  Root  we  developed  the  staff  school  and 
the  school  of  the  line  at  Leavenworth,  and  the  War 
College  at  Washington,  as  a  series  of  schools  where 
ambitious  officers  could  study  tactics,  specialize  in 
different  branches,  form  paper  armies,  and  direct 
them  in  the  field.  The  Staff  College  applied  West 
Point  industry.  Its  students  worked  long  hours  in 
the  enthusiasm  of  mastering  their  profession.  It 
was  necessarily  scholastic.  I  remember  seeing,  soon 
after  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  a  combat  maneuver 
of  a  few  companies  in  the  fields  at  Leavenworth.  It 
was  carried  out  in  a  manner  that  would  have  morti- 
fied a  young  reserve  officer  in  France.  Some  of 
the  soldiers  participating  had  had  two  and  three 
years'  service.  In  wonted  freedom  of  speech  I 
suggested  that  with  three  months'  training  com- 
panies of  college  men,  farm-hands,  elevator  boys, 
brakemen,    firemen,    clerks,    and    managers,    drawn 


REGULARS  AND  RESERVES         423 

from  civil  life,  could  be  taught  to  perform  this 
maneuver  better  than  we  had  just  seen  it  performed. 
There  was  a  chorus  of  protest,  particularly  from 
the  older  officers,  who  were  saying  that  the  trouble 
was  that  these  men  had  not  had  enough  drill:  it 
took  five  years  to  make  a  soldier.  Not  all  the 
younger  officers  joined  in  this  view.  One  had  the 
courage  to  express  his  opinion:  "  You're  right — pro- 
vided those  citizens  you  mention  put  their  hearts  and 
intelligence  into  the  job.  Give  them  six  months,  with 
enough  experts  to  train  them,  and  plenty  of  war 
material  to  back  them;  shoot  over  them  a  few  times 
— and  I'd  ask  nothing  better  than  to  lead  them." 
He  was  to  live  to  see  his  heresy  become  orthodoxy; 
to  see  West  Point  receiving  lessons  in  democracy 
from  American  soldiery. 

Upon  our  entry  into  the  war,  our  officers  might 
have  been  divided  into  three  classes:  (A),  including 
about  ten  per  cent  of  the  whole,  officers  who  were 
the  best  of  the  Leavenworth  graduates :  officers  who 
had  shown  administrative  ability  and  natural  leader- 
ship; officers  who  were  in  touch  with  the  world, 
alert,  vital,  with  strong  constitutions,  and  the 
capacity  of  meeting  situations.  These  men  would 
have  done  well  in  any  occupation  in  civil  life.  (B), 
average  officers,  devoted  to  their  duty,  consistently 
efficient.  These  represented  about  forty  per  cent. 
They  would  have  been  moderately  successful  in  civii 


424  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

life.  (C),  the  remaining  fifty  per  cent,  of  varying 
degrees  of  capacity.  They  included  the  officers  who 
kept  step  and  escaped  courts,  those  without  ambi- 
tion, those  who  had  not  grown  since  they  received 
their  commissions,  the  fussy  sticklers  for  etiquette 
without  power  of  initiative,  those  who  avoided  any 
extra  work,  those  who  were  never  meant  to  lead 
men  in  battle.  This  class,  with  few  exceptions, 
would  not  have  been  successful  in  civil  life;  not  good 
lawyers  or  doctors,  railroad  men  or  mechanics.  They 
would  never  have  earned  the  pay  they  received  any- 
where but  in  the  army. 

Taken  as  a  whole,  the  average  was  about  the 
same  as  in  any  group  of  men;  it  was  high,  indeed, 
considering  the  absence  of  incentive  and  of  competi- 
tion. Then  there  were  the  unknown  quantities  in 
every  class:  the  officers  whose  latent  powers,  hith- 
erto undetected,  came  into  play  under  the  call  of 
emergency;  and  the  officers  who  disappointed  ex- 
pectations formed  in  peace  when  they  were  put  to 
the  test  of  war. 

All  of  them  were  fellows  in  the  life  of  the  post, 
where  the  feminine  element  had  its  influence.  Almost 
without  exception  they  lived  modestly  on  their  pay. 
Everyone  knew  the  other's  income.  The  rank  of 
wives  was  that  of  their  husbands.  The  officer  com- 
manding was  the  head  of  the  family.  All  the  jeal- 
ousies  of   any   isolated   community   were   in    play. 


REGULARS  AND  RESERVES         425 

There  was  bound  to  be  intrigue  for  good  assign- 
ments, not  only  in  Washington  and  favorite  posts 
at  home,  but  in  the  Philippines;  but  there  was  no 
such  thing  as  corruption.  The  army  was  straight; 
its  code  of  honor  was  unimpeachable,  except  in  the 
influences  for  good  assignments.  There  were  hops 
and  dinners,  and  visiting  back  and  forth.  Inner 
feelings  might  be  strong,  but  they  must  be  kept  under 
the  mantle  of  formal  politeness;  for  you  did  not 
choose  your  companions.  They  were  chosen  by  army 
orders.  Everything  was  official,  and  what  was  not 
was   rank. 

Talk  at  the  bachelor  messes  and  at  all  gatherings 
was  about  "  shop  " :  which  left  the  outsider  as  de- 
tached as  a  railroad  man  attending  a  convention 
of  chemists.  The  lack  of  common  themes  was  one 
reason  for  absence  of  contact  with  the  "  they  "  of 
the  outside  world.  The  army  register  was  the  most 
read  of  books.  It  showed  where  all  your  friends 
were  serving,  and  also  you  could  reckon  when  you 
would  receive  your  promotion,  and  when  perhaps 
you  might  have  a  separate  command,  with  husband 
and  wife  outranking  all  present  and  having  to  follow 
the  views  of  no  senior  in  matters  of  routine. 
Strong  and  biting  criticisms  were  exchanged  of  fellow 
officers,  whose  nicknames  of  cadet  days  remained, — 
whether  "  Rusty,"  or  "  Poppy,"  "  Wooden-headed 
Charlie,"    "Slow    Bill,"    "Pincushion    Pete,"     or 


426  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

"  Noisy  Tom."  Smith  had  gone  to  seed.  How 
Jones  had  ever  been  able  to  graduate  from  the  Point 
was  past  understanding.  Robinson  managed  more 
good  appointments  with  less  ability  than  any  man  in 
the  service.  All  belonged  to  the  army;  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  outside  world  there  could  be  no  fault  in 
the  army.  Officers  stood  together;  they  stood  up  for 
their  men,  no  matter  how  mercilessly  they  "  bawled 
them  out  "  at  drill.  In  the  background  at  drill  and 
in  the  barracks  were  the  sergeants  and  corporals, 
the  "  non-coms,"  who  shaped  the  "  rookies  '  into 
soldiers,  and  who  carried  on  all  the  routine  drills. 
Old  soldiers,  they  had  fallen  into  the  habit  of  army 
life.  Their  position  in  our  democratic  country 
lacked  the  importance  that  it  enjoyed  in  European 
armies.  In  the  offices  were  the  field  clerks,  who  ran 
the  typewriters  and  carried  on  office  routine. 

Among  the  officers  the  college  spirit  backing  the 
football  team  for  victory,  and  that  of  the  secret 
society  and  of  the  trade-union,  were  inevitably,  as  in 
all  officers'  corps,  united  in  the  common  fealty  of 
self-protection.  The  army  was  always  fighting  for 
its  rights  against  an  unappreciative  nation.  Secretly 
it  was  always  against  each  administration.  Roose- 
velt was  almost  hated  at  one  time.  Later  he  was  ad- 
mired. Congress  was  regarded  as  a  natural  enemy 
which  cut  down  appropriations.  Civilian  secretaries 
of  war,  who  came  into  office  without  the  slightest 


REGULARS  AND  RESERVES         427 

knowledge  of  the  character  of  the  military  service, 
fell  into  the  hands  of  a  clique  of  officers  close  to  the 
throne.  Unless  you  had  a  friend  among  them,  you 
might  not  count  on  good  assignments,  said  the  pessi- 
mistic of  class  C. 

The  feeling  that  the  army  was  underpaid  was  as 
common  as  that  it  was  unappreciated.  Officers, 
thinking  only  of  the  men  in  civil  life  who  succeeded, 
complained  that  they  could  not  associate  with  the 
outside  World  because  they  had  not  the  money  to 
keep  up  their  social  end.  The  dream  of  every 
officer  was  of  a  great  conscript  army,  like  the 
French  or  German.  This  meant  promotion,  of 
course,  and  that  the  army  would  count  for  some- 
thing in  the  country,  though  the  thought  was  not 
consciously  selfish  on  the  part  of  the  best  men.  It 
was  professional  and  natural  human  ambition,  based 
on  the  conviction  of  the  necessity  of  military  train- 
ing for  every  citizen.  Without  it  an  officer  could 
not  be  a  good  soldier.  It  was  a  better  spirit  than 
that  of  the  time-servers  of  class  C,  who  were  inter- 
ested in  promotion  alone,  and  in  passing  the  time. 

The  prospect  of  Japan  taking  the  Pacific  Coast 
was  the  main  item  of  propaganda  before  the  Great 
War  began.  Then  Germany,  or  the  victor  in  the 
war,  was  seen  devastating  our  coasts,  his  great  guns 
toppling  our  cities  in  ruins,  and  his  infantry  sweeping 
across  country,  perpetrating  the  horrors  of  Belgium. 


428  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Any  officer  who  knew  his  profession  in  the  large, 
knew — despite  the  figures  assembled  for  its  proof — 
that  the  transport  of  forces  for  a  successful  invasion 
was  out  of  the  question;  but  such  methods  of  making 
the  flesh  creep  alone  could  awaken  an  indifferent 
public  to  the  necessity  of  an  adequate  army  and  the 
value  of  military  drill  to  our  heterogeneous  popula- 
tion. The  regulars  saw  us  depending  against  trained 
hosts  upon  citizens  in  shirt-sleeves  and  the  undisci- 
plined National  Guard.  "  They  "  of  the  outside 
world  were  concerned  only  with  their  own  prosperity 
— undisciplined,  utterly  without  the  military  sense  or 
spirit.  War  was  a  biological  necessity.  There  had 
always  been  war,  and  there  always  would  be  war. 
One  day  we  would  find  ourselves  at  war.  The 
nation  would  call  for  soldiers,  and  the  little  band 
of  regulars  would  go  forth  to  sacrifice.  Meanwhile, 
in  the  midst  of  ignorance,  they  would  keep  the  altar 
fires  burning,  and  remain  true  to  the  traditions  of 
their  profession. 

Then  a  miracle  happened.  The  dream  of  the  reg- 
ulars came  true.  There  were  to  be  no  political  gen- 
erals :  none  were  to  be  rewarded  with  commissions 
for  raising  regiments,  as  in  the  Civil  War.  We 
were  to  have  the  draft;  all  direction  was  to  be  left 
to  the  professional.  The  nation  signed  a  check 
upon  all  our  resources,  human  and  material,  to  be 
filled  out  by  them.     Our  people  offered  all  they  had 


REGULARS  AND  RESERVES         429 

in  order  to  save  civilization.  Their  thought  was 
the  interest  of  their  souls,  their  country,  humanity, 
and  their  future  happiness  and  prosperity. 

To  the  army  officers  war  was  their  occupation: 
a  viewpoint  entirely  different.  Glorious  opportunity 
had  burst  the  door  of  their  isolation  wide  open, 
beckoning  them  to  power.  It  was  the  same  to  them 
as  if  overnight  the  stocks  in  a  land  company  had 
jumped  a  thousand  per  cent  owing  to  the  discovery 
of  oil  on  its  property.  Majors  and  captains  of  classes 
B  and  C  were  to  be  colonels  of  regiments  of  three 
thousand  men,  more  than  colonels,  and  many  briga- 
diers, had  ever  commanded.  All  the  officers  of  class 
A  might  now  carry  out  their  theories  in  practice : 
they  might  aim  for  the  command,  not  of  paper,  but 
of  real  armies  in  battle.  Only  a  few  had  been  in 
touch  with  the  psychology  of  the  country.  The 
country  was  swarming  in  upon  them.  Was  it  sur- 
prising that  some  of  class  C  and  class  B  and  even 
of  class  A  felt,  at  the  prospect  of  enlightening  the 
ignorance  of  the  manhood  of  all  the  United  States, 
a  constriction  of  cap-bands  which  had  formerly  been 
large  enough? 

For  recruit  officers  of  this  enormous  new  army  we 
turned  to  our  colleges  and  technical  schools.  This 
was  an  educational  test,  but  the  only  one  that  could 
be  hurriedly  applied.  The  average  of  the  candi- 
dates  for  the   officers'   training  camps  must  be   as 


43Q  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

naturally  capable  as  the  average  of  army  officers. 
They  must  possess  a  class  A,  drawn  from  men  al- 
ready tested  in  civil  life,  which  would  be  equal  in 
brain  power  to  class  A  on  the  army  list;  and  it  must 
be  relatively  larger,  considering  how  few  army  offi- 
cers there  were  and  how  numerous  were  the  edu- 
cated, intelligent,  and  ambitious  youth  of  our  coun- 
try. Among  those  who  were  only  privates  in  the 
swarms  of  volunteers  who  enlisted  immediately  upon 
our  entry  into  the  war  were  privates  to  whom  nature 
had  given  a  natural  capacity  for  leadership  which 
no  curriculum  of  a  military  school  or  civil  college 
could  supply;  who  were  to  take  the  leadership  of 
companies  out  of  the  hands  of  men  who  had  an  "  A 
plus  "  in  calculus,  surveying,  and  Latin.  After  the 
volunteers,  the  draft  men  began  arriving  at  the  train- 
ing camps  in  excursion  parties. 

"  When  I  saw  them  piling  off  the  train,"  said 
one  regular  officer,  "  the  undisciplined  sons  of  an 
undisciplined  people,  I  wondered  what  they  would 
do  to  us.  They  had  not  been  in  camp  a  day  before 
I  knew  that  they  were  going  to  play  the  game."  It 
had  never  occurred  to  him,  his  horizon  restricted 
from  his  juvenile  days  at  the  Academy,  that  there 
was  discipline  in  the  running  of  our  railroads,  our 
industries,  our  labor  unions,  our  societies,  our  lodges, 
and  in  all  the  team-play  of  our  sports;  that  we  were 
all  used  to  obeying  orders  in  the  process  of  earning 


REGULARS  AND  RESERVES         431 

a  living  or  winning  a  baseball  game.  Those  boys 
among  the  volunteers  and  in  the  draft  were  of  the 
same  kind  as  the  boys  who  went  to  the  Point  to 
become  members  of  the  officer  class.  There  had 
been  no  such  military  marvel  in  all  history  as  the 
willingness  of  our  people  to  yield  authority  which 
the  British  had  granted  only  after  painful  stages  of 
inveterate  resistance.  It  was  all  inexpressibly  mag- 
nificent; a  better  proof  of  strength  and  character 
than  any  form  of  routine  military  preparedness. 
Given  such  a  spirit — a  spirit  the  stronger  for  the 
dislike  of  military  forms  and  the  aversion  to  war — 
and  we  could  no  more  fail  of  victory  in  the  end  than 
you  can  exterminate  the  Jewish  race.  Without  that 
spirit  nations  decay  and  fail,  for  war  does  not  form 
character:  war  only  expresses  the  character  formed 
in  peace. 

Every  volunteer  and  draft  private,  every  would- 
be  officer,  realized  his  ignorance,  as  a  neophyte 
about  to  be  initiated  into  professional  mystery.  He 
had  the  willingness  to  conform,  the  eagerness  to 
learn,  of  the  neophyte.  No  teachers  were  ever  safer 
from  scepticism  on  the  part  of  their  pupils.  The 
West  Point  discipline  was  applied.  It  taught  the 
drillmaster's  fundamentals  of  forming  good  physique 
and  habits  of  strict  routine.  For  this,  great  credit 
is  due.  This  host  of  recruits,  American  in  intelli- 
gence and  adaptability,  "  playing  the  game,"  never 


432  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

able  to  answer  back,  rigid  at  salute,  imbibing  the 
instruction  of  class  A  or  enduring  the  outbursts  of 
temper  in  good  army  "  bawling  out  "  language  from 
class  C,  formed  a  silent  body  of  criticism  which  be- 
came increasingly  discriminate  with  growth  of 
knowledge.  The  instructors  did  not  forget  that  the 
course  at  West  Point  was  four  years,  though  they 
did  forget  that  three-fourths  of  the  curriculum  con- 
sisted of  elementals  learned  at  a  civil  school.  They 
did  forget  their  association  with  the  "  rookies  "  who 
became  privates  of  regulars  in  time  of  peace.  Hold- 
ing fast  to  these  criteria,  they  overlooked  how  fast 
the  average  youth  of  America  could  learn  when  he 
put  his  heart  and  mind  into  intensive  study  and  drill. 


XXV 

LEAVENWORTH  COMMANDS 

Developing  "  staff  work "  in  France — The  younger  men  from 
Leavenworth  schools  in  the  saddle — The  inner  ring  of  the 
expert — Building  the  "  best  staff  "  at  Langres — The  obsession 
of  promotion. 

So  it  happened  that  the  little  band  of  regulars  did 
not  go  out  to  sacrifice  in  a  body.  They  were  scat- 
tered through  the  training  camps  as  instructors,  and 
they  directed  the  expansion  of  our  army  organiza- 
tion. The  officers  of  our  General  Staff  in  Wash- 
ington had  followed  the  strategy  of  the  war  on  the 
maps,  and  studied  its  larger  tactical  problems  in  the 
light  of  such  reports  as  were  received.  Their  own 
precepts  and  training  led  them  to  admire  the  German 
rather  than  the  French  army  system;  a  majority, 
thinking  at  first  that  Germany  would  win,  were  ac- 
cordingly impressed  with  the  seriousness  of  our 
undertaking  when  we  entered  the  war.  They  hardly 
realized  that  the  Canadians  and  Australians,  who 
were  people  of  something  the  same  character  as  our- 
selves, had  developed  from  raw  recruits  divisions 
and  corps  which  were  without  superiors.  We  had 
formed  no  plan  for  operating  an  army  in  Europe. 

433 


434  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

We  seemed  to  be  unfamiliar  with  the  static  details 
of  trench  warfare,  with  the  clothing  and  equipment 
required;  otherwise  all  this  information  would  not 
have  had  to  be  sent  back  by  the  officers  of  our 
pioneer  force  in  France  three  months  after  our  entry 
into  the  war. 

The  training  camps  being  established,  and  muni- 
tion plants  under  way  at  home,  we  must  prepare  to 
command  our  forces  when  they  were  ready  to  take 
the  field.  "  Staff  work "  was  supposed  the  most 
expert  of  all  the  branches.  In  my  first  book  I  have 
already  gone  into  the  organization  of  our  staff  in 
France,  formed  on  the  plan  of  European  staffs. 
What  I  have  to  add  now  comes  in  the  light  of  later 
events,  after  the  staff  had  been  tried  in  battle,  and 
in  the  light  of  the  days  of  peace,  when  discrimina- 
tion will  not  be  misunderstood.  In  the  early  days 
in  France  a  progressive  officer  said  to  me:  "We 
must  not  go  too  fast  in  elimination  of  the  unfit  and 
promotion  of  the  fit.  It  will  upset  the  equilibrium. 
We  must  wait  on  evolution."  It  was  General 
Pershing  who  had  to  maintain  the  equilibrium.  He 
was  a  regular;  and  regulars  regarded  him  as  their 
general.  He  had  to  depend  upon  the  men  who  had 
rank;  and  upon  trained  soldiers  who  knew  the  army 
system,  in  order  to  start  his  machine.  One  day, 
someone  remarked  to  him,  "  But  this  officer  is  in  a 
rut,  and  a  winding  rut,  that  does  not  permit  him  to 


LEAVENWORTH  COMMANDS       435 

see  ahead,  let  alone  over  the  walls."  The  General 
replied:  "But  he's  one  of  my  broad-minded  ones. 
What  do  you  think  I  do  with  my  narrow-minded 
ones  r 

Possibly  the  tests,  ever  so  swift  in  war,  were 
swifter  in  France  than  at  home.  It  was  soon  evident 
that  some  regular  officers  could  rise  to  their  tasks, 
and  that  some  could  not.  Some  of  them  had  fallen 
into  habits  that  did  not  permit  long  concentration  of 
mind.  They  had  not  the  physical  vitality  to  endure 
long  hours  of  labor.  They  were  obsessed  by  small 
details,  when  they  were  suddenly  given  charge  of  a 
department  store  instead  of  a  little  store  with  one 
clerk  for  an  assistant.  Some  were  simply  over- 
whelmed by  their  new  burdens,  or  more  possessed 
with  the  pride  of  authority  than  its  efficient  exertion. 
They  were  the  ones  who  would  show  reserve  officers 
that  building  a  bridge  or  baking  a  loaf  of  bread  or 
putting  up  a  crane  or  organizing  a  laboratory  was  a 
different  matter  when  you  did  it  for  the  army.  Some 
who  had  vitality  and  concentration  were  hopelessly 
lacking  in  capacity  for  organization.  They  were 
particularly  impressed  with  their  awful  responsi- 
bility in  having  to  train  reserve  officers  not  only  in 
combat  but  in  the  Services  of  Supply.  They  would 
not  admit  that  there  was  anything  about  the  army 
which  a  reserve  officer  could  do  as  well  as  a  regular. 
The  capacity  of  many  for  prolonged  controversy 


436  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

over  theory  and  for  writing  memoranda  was 
astounding;  a  result  of  the  days  of  talking  "  shop  " 
and  speculative  discussion  at  the  posts.  Where 
naval  officers  have  always  a  fleet  in  being,  and  are 
always  on  a  war  footing — which  means  a  successful 
secretary  of  the  navy  if  he  will  only  sign  the  papers 
placed  on  his  desk — army  officers  had  only  an 
army  in  imagination,  which  meant  that  a  "  suc- 
cessful "  secretary  of  war  must  indeed  be  a  great 
man. 

From  the  first  there  was  a  struggle  in  France  be- 
tween two  elements:  between  the  ruthlessly  progres- 
sive and  the  reactionaries  who  were  set  in  traditions; 
between  the  able,  energetic,  ambitious,  enduring,  and 
others  who  might  have  finer  but  not  as  aggressive 
qualities;  between  the  men  who  were  sure  of  them- 
selves and  those  who  were  not.  For  his  immediate 
advisers  Pershing  had  to  turn  to  the  Leavenworth 
men,  who  had  been  trained  in  the  theory  of  a  large 
organization  and  who  had  used  it  as  the  basis  of 
intelligent  observation  of  the  operations  of  the 
French  and  British  armies.  A  Leavenworth  man 
believed  in  Leavenworth  men.  He  had  enormous 
capacity  for  desk  work  which  he  had  developed  as 
a  student  at  Leavenworth.  A  scholastic  preparation 
thus  became  the  criterion  for  practice  in  organiza- 
tion. Leavenworth  men  believed  in  the  gospel  of 
driving   hard   work;   of  rewards    for   success,    and 


LEAVENWORTH  COMMANDS       437 

merciless  elimination  for  failure — which  is  the  basic 
theory  of  successful  war. 

All  armies  are  looking  either  back  at  the  last  war 
or  ahead  to  the  next.  One  element,  leaning  back 
on  its  oars,  considers  the  lessons  of  the  last  war,  if 
it  were  won,  as  setting  all  precedents  for  present 
policy.  Another,  usually  the  men  who  were  not  in 
the  last  war  except  as  captains  and  lieutenants,  con- 
siders that  new  conditions  will  again  set  new  prece- 
dents in  the  next  war.  The  officers  in  the  forties  in 
the  days  of  the  war  with  Spain  and  the  Philippine 
rebellion,  who  chafed  at  the  Civil  War  traditions 
of  their  seniors,  now  had  command  of  divisions, 
while  in  the  Great  War  the  Leavenworth  men 
who  were  in  the  thirties  and  forties  were  pushing 
up  from  below.  If  the  later  generation  lacked  rank 
on  this  occasion,  it  had  power  in  France  as  the  re- 
sult of  Leavenworth  and  the  new  staff  system,  while 
promotion  by  selection  called  its  ambition. 

Leavenworth  graduates  sat  in  the  seats  of  the 
mighty  on  the  right  and  left  hand  of  the  Commander- 
in-Chief;  the  tables  of  organization  were  of  their 
devising;  the  orders  signed  by  the  Chief  of  Staff, 
which  the  divisional  and  the  corps  generals  and  all 
the  generals  of  the  Services  of  Supply  had  to  obey, 
originated  from  this  inner  circle  in  the  barracks 
buildings  at  Chaumont,  which  was  surrounded  with 
professional  mystery.     Divisional  and  corps  chiefs 


438  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

of  staff  were  Leavenworth  men  in  touch  with  the 
inner  circle.     The   disrespectful   thought  of  these 
officers  as  the  Leavenworth  "clique";  but  it  was 
not  the   fashion  to  do  much  thinking  aloud  about 
them,  such  was  their  power.    They  did  not  think  of 
themselves  as  a  clique;  not  even  the  members  of  a 
secret  society  think  of  themselves  in  that  way.    They 
were  a  group  of  veterans,  who  if  they  had  not  the 
scars  won  in  battle — we  had  had  no  great  battles 
since  the  Civil  War — had  burned  the  midnight  oil 
and  played  the  war  game  together.     They  had,  as 
volunteers,  in  order  to  learn  their  profession,  when 
the  people  of  the  country  knew  no  more  of  their 
existence  than  if  they  had  been  in  a  monastery,  gone 
through  a  post-graduate  course  as  rigorous  as  West 
Point  itself.  They  thought  of  themselves  as  apostles, 
their  voices  unheard  in  a  land  saturated  with  pacifism 
and   indifference,   who,   in   fasting,   prayer,    and  in- 
dustry, had  studied  the  true  gospel  in  their  holy  of 
holies.     They  alone  had  conned  the  pages  of  the 
sacred  books   behind  the   altar  where   the   regular 
army  kept  the  sacred  fires  burning. 

"  War  is  the  greatest  game  on  earth,"  as  one  of 
them  said.  In  this  thought  they  had  the  same  reason 
for  enthusiasm  in  study  as  a  chemist  in  his  experi- 
ments or  an  architect  in  his  building.  In  their  school 
in  the  wheat  fields  of  Kansas  they  were  manipulat- 
ing in  theory  forces  which  made  a  hundred  million 


LEAVENWORTH  COMMANDS       439 

dollar  corporation  an  incidental  pawn.  But  they 
were  dealing  with  the  imaginary,  and  the  managers 
of  the  corporation  with  the  real.  When  the  war 
came  all  their  forces  of  imagination  became  real. 

To  be  a  "  Leavenworth  man  "  meant  a  title  to 
staff  position,  which  you  must  take  whether  you 
wanted  it  or  not.  There  were  many  excellent  of- 
ficers who  never  went  to  Leavenworth;  officers  who 
were  masterly  company,  battalion,  and  regimental 
commanders,  and  who  had  the  quality  of  natural 
leaders.  They  did  not  want  to  train  for  the  staff. 
They  preferred  the  line.  Their  ambition,  nursed 
through  the  years  of  service,  with  never  an  assign- 
ment to  Washington,  was  to  make  sure  of  a  com- 
mand in  the  field  if  war  came. 

"  I  had  rather  lead  a  battalion  of  infantry  than 
be  chief  of  staff  of  an  army,"  as  one  of  them  said. 
Another  said,  early  in  the  war,  "  I'm  all  for  the 
Leavenworth  men  to  do  the  chessboard  work,  but 
we'll  find  that  they  have  studied  so  much  that  some 
of  them  don't  know  how  to  make  decisions  when 
they  are  dealing  with  a  real  instead  of  a  paper 
army.  I  don't  envy  them.  I  obey  their  orders.  I'll 
make  a  good  regiment;  that  is  all  I  ask — let  me  be 
with  troops."  He  was  right  in  saying  that  the  men 
who  stood  high  at  Leavenworth  ran  the  danger  of 
being  too  academic  for  practical  war,  as  surely  as 
the  best  students  at  college  are  unfitted  for  practical 


44Q  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

business  life.  Yet  all  criticism  of  the  Leavenworth 
coterie  runs  foul  of  the  question :  "  What  should  we 
have  done  without  them  in  France?  "  If  you  have 
to  build  a  great  bridge  and  there  is  no  engineer  who 
has  ever  erected  one,  why,  it  would  be  better  to 
choose  a  man  who  had  been  through  a  first-class 
engineering  school  to  make  the  plans,  than  to  choose 
the  contractors  who  got  out  the  stone  or  sunk  the 
caissons,  or  the  financiers  who  furnished  the  funds. 
Every  Leavenworth  man  had  pet  ideas  of  his  own, 
as  the  result  of  his  study,  which  he  sought  to  apply 
when  authority  came  to  him,  with  inevitable  inter- 
ference with  team-play.  He  had  all  the  enthusiasm 
of  a  graduate  of  the  Beaux-Arts  who  is  given  a 
million-dollar  appropriation  to  build  a  state  capitol 
as  his  first  assignment. 

In  relation  to  our  little  army  with  its  scattered 
posts,  their  problem  in  making  a  great  army  organi- 
zation was  much  the  same  as  the  transformation  of 
Japan  from  medievalism  to  modernism,  or  amalga- 
mating and  improving  all  the  small  plants  of  indi- 
vidual business  of  fifty  years  ago  in  a  year's  time  into 
a  modern  trust.  The  thing  required  broad  vision. 
Some  of  them  possessed  it,  but  not  all,  even  if  they 
were  Americans.  Such  was  the  loyalty  of  grad- 
uates to  Leavenworth  that  I  have  heard  them  say 
that  it  was  the  best  staff  school  in  the  world.  A 
French   officer  might   respond:    "Perhaps,   but   we 


LEAVENWORTH  COMMANDS       441 

have  had  more  opportunities  for  practice  in  handling 
large  bodies  of  troops."  The  British  and  French 
staffs  thought  that  our  men  were  worthy  of  the  high- 
est praise ;  but  they  thought  that  our  staff  was  inex- 
perienced and  sophomoric.  They  would  not  have 
been  averse,  as  we  know,  to  taking  over  the  staff 
direction  of  our  army,  which,  considering  the  feeling 
of  the  line  toward  the  staff  on  all  occasions,  would 
have  led  to  additional  inter-allied  friction.  Relations 
would  be  smoother  by  having  the  resentment  of  the 
men  who  bore  the.  brunt  of  casualties  directed  into 
home  channels. 

The  Leavenworth  men,  thinking  as  army  officers 
and  for  the  army,  did  not  wish  to  yield  power.  They 
wanted  to  establish  a  staff  system  and  a  tradition 
for  a  large  American  force,  in  the  hope  that  universal 
service  would  be  accepted  and  continued,  making 
the  system  permanent.  Where  were  they  to  get  the 
host  of  additional  staff  officers  required  for  the 
armies,  the  corps,  and  the  divisions  in  battle?  A 
few  student  observers  could  be  sent  to  the  British 
and  French  staffs;  but  not  a  sufficiently  large  num- 
ber when  any  outsider  was  in  the  way  in  the  crowded 
quarters  of  a  series  of  dugouts,  or  the  ruined  houses 
of  a  village.  Moreover,  Leavenworth  wanted  no 
system  half  British  and  half  French,  but  one  suited 
to  our  own  army  for  all  time.  Leavenworth  was 
always  thinking  of  our  military  future.     Following 


442  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

our  national  bent  for  excellence  and  this  thought  of 
the  future,  which  led  us  to  aim  for  the  best  gas  mask, 
the  best  aeroplane  motor,  the  best  machine-gun,  the 
best  gas,  the  best  of  everything,  Leavenworth  pro- 
posed to  make  the  best  staff.  To  this  tendency  of 
ours  to  seek  perfection  the  Allies  might  reply:  "  Per- 
fection is  all  very  well;  but  we  have  tested  equip- 
ment, and  a  staff  system  the  result  of  three  years' 
trial,  and  time  is  valuable  against  the  German." 

Just  as  the  West  Point  system,  which  takes  the 
"  plebes  "  in  hand,  was  being  applied  in  our  train- 
ing camps,  so  Leavenworth  staff  college  was  repro- 
duced in  France  in  the  ancient  city  of  Langres,  near 
Chaumont,  which  had  been  a  fortress  in  many  wars. 
Here  regulars  worked  beside  reserves,  while  the 
regulars  had  no  special  privileges  except  the  first 
choice  of  horses  to  ride.  Here  they  were  to  learn 
how  to  solve  the  tactical  management  of  troops  in 
action,  the  technique  of  all  the  different  G's  of  the 
staff:  G-i  and  G-4,  which  had  to  do  with  transport 
and  supply;  G-2,  which  had  to  do  with  intelligence; 
G-3,  with  operations,  and  G-5,  with  training. 

There  was  much  to  teach  in  that  three  months' 
course.  How  long  will  it  take  to  reach  all  the  units 
of  a  division,  billeted  in  ten  villages  in  an  area  of  ten 
square  miles,  with  an  order  for  movement?  How 
will  it  be  sent?  How  will  it  be  written  after  consul- 
tation with  G-i,  who  knows  the  transport  available? 


LEAVENWORTH  COMMANDS       443 

Which  units  will  march  out  first?  How  long  will  it 
take  to  entrain  those  going  by  train?  If  the  motor 
transport,  and  the  horse-drawn  transport,  too,  have 
to  go  overland,  what  roads  will  they  take  to  reach 
their  destination?  Have  the  drivers  their  maps? 
In  making  a  relief  in  the  trenches,  how  long  will  it 
take  to  march  up  and  complete  the  task? 

Four  German  prisoners  say  one  thing,  four  an- 
other, and  three  another.  Take  their  reports  in  con- 
nection with  aeroplane  reports  and  general  observa- 
tion. What  is  your  decision  as  to  the  enemy's 
strength  on  your  front?  Two  additional  divisions 
are  suddenly  brought  into  your  sector.  How  are 
you  to  feed  them?  An  attack  is  planned  to  pinch 
out  a  salient.  How  long  is  to  be  your  artillery 
preparation?  What  its  character?  What  points 
will  you  cover  with  the  corps  artillery  fire?  What 
with  the  divisional  howitzers?  There  is  your  map 
with  the  information  in  G-2's  possession  for  G-3  to 
consider  in  working  out  details.  The  infantry  must 
be  preceded  by  a  barrage  worked  out  with  a  mathe- 
matical accuracy,  that  will  be  practicable  for  the  gun- 
ners and  the  infantry.  All  the  fundamentals  of  tech- 
nical knowledge  were  what  arithmetic,  algebra  and 
geometry,  and  the  strength  of  materials  are  to  a 
bridge  builder,  in  solving  the  problems  presented  to 
civilians,  lawyers,  engineers,  and  scholars  of  ages 
from  twenty-five  to  forty-five,  who  worked  them  out 


444  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

and  went  to  recitation  in  a  school-room  where  they 
sat  at  little  desks,  as  they  did  in  boyhood  days. 

The  number  of  hours  of  study  a  student  put  in  at 
Leavenworth  had  been  a  test  of  capacity — the  reason 
for  Leavenworth's  existence.  While  officers  who  did 
not  take  the  course  were  regarded  somewhat  in  the 
light  of  outsiders,  "  We'll  show  these  cits  what  it  is 
to  work,"  as  one  regular  said.  Langres  was  a  very 
sweatshop  in  scholastic  industry.  It  was  a  combina- 
tion of  learning  and  an  infinite  amount  of  clerical 
detail  for  men  many  of  whom  were  used  to  having 
their  details  looked  after  by  clerks.  British  and 
French  officers,  acting  as  instructors  and  lecturers, 
elucidated  the  problems  on  the  blackboard.  As  one 
saturated  with  war  on  the  Western  Front  listened 
to  preachment  of  fundamentals,  I  was  impressed 
with  how  much  the  average  man  who  has  not  seen 
war,  and  has  taken  his  conception  of  it  from  a  sol- 
dier charging  or  firing  a  gun,  had  to  learn  before 
he  had  the  a  b  c's  of  modern  war. 

One  also  wondered  if  all  the  hard  work  were 
always  to  the  purpose.  Practical  Allied  officers, 
who  were  always  polite,  thought  that  the  students 
did  so  much  grinding  that  they  became  dull  and 
stale ;  we  were  trying  to  teach  them  too  many  gener- 
alities. A  knowing  regular  said  one  day  to  a  re- 
servist: "You  are  too  serious.  The  thing  in  the 
army  is  to  make  a  show  at  this  sort  of  gymnastics, — 


LEAVENWORTH  COMMANDS       445 

then  use  your  common  sense  when  you  reach  the 
front."  This  was  in  kind  with  a  remark  of  one 
regular  officer  about  another,  whose  information 
had  led  us  astray:  "I  know  him — a  regular  West 
Point  trick.  You  must  pretend  you  know,  and  be 
very  definite  in  the  pretense.  That  often  gets  over." 
It  seemed  to  me  one  of  the  faults  of  the  West  Point 
system. 

The  regulars  had  the  advantage  at  Langres  in 
that  they  had  been  ingrained  in  the  military  instinct, 
which  is  what  is  called  the  mathematical  sense  in 
a  schoolboy  who  finds  mathematics  easy;  but  if  the 
instinct  were  only  that  of  cadet  days  and  of  com- 
pany drill,  and  their  minds  had  not  grown,  they 
suffered  from  the  little  learning  which  is  a  dangerous 
thing.  Though  the  average  Leavenworth  man — not 
in  all  cases  a  class  A  man — did  not  see,  despite  the 
Canadian  example,  how  anyone  could  become  a  staff 
officer  in  a  few  months  when  you  had  to  study  at 
Leavenworth  for  years,  it  soon  became  evident  that 
some  of  these  reserve  officers  with  finely  trained 
minds,  used  to  the  application  and  competition  of 
civil  life,  were  showing  themselves  the  superior  of 
the  regulars.  This  in  the  scholastic  sense,  without 
considering  practice  in  action.  There  was  one  Leav- 
enworth man  I  knew  who,  though  a  master  at  solving 
problems  in  the  classroom,  seemed  unable  to  solve 
any  problem  in  action.     Beside  the  Langres  school 


446  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

we  had  a  school  of  the  line,  and  a  candidates'  school 
where  men  who  had  shown  their  leadership  as  pri- 
vates in  combat  might  be  educated  in  theory  for  com- 
missions. The  reserve  graduates  of  Langres  were 
being  sent  out  in  the  spring  and  summer  of  191 8  to 
be  assistants  in  the  G  sections  of  army  and  corps  and 
divisions.  In  a  few  instances  they  even  became 
chiefs  of  section  of  division  staffs.  They  were  prom- 
ised that  one  day  they  might  wear  the  black  stripe 
of  the  General  Staff  on  their  sleeves  as  the  reward 
of  efficient  service.  "  Doping  the  black  stripe " 
was  the  slang  phrase  for  the  grind  at  Langres.  One 
day  the  reserve  graduates  might  also  have  promo- 
tion, and  one  day,  too,  the  reserve  officers,  captains 
and  lieutenants  and  a  few  majors  of  the  line,  ar- 
riving with  the  divisions  from  the  training  camps — 
as  our  organization  grew  and  was  knit  together — 
might  also  have  promotion. 

About  this  time  promotion  was  becoming  a  form 
of  intoxication  with  the  regulars.  They  must  be 
cared  for  first;  in  due  course,  after  the  reservists 
became  soldiers,  the  reservists  would  have  their  turn. 
New  tables  of  organization  were  being  devised 
which  called  for  more  high-ranking  officers.  With- 
out rank  the  work  could  not  be  done,  said  his  chiefs 
to  the  Commander-in-Chief,  who  once  greeted  one  of 
them  with  the  remark:  "How  many  lieutenant- 
colonels  must  become  colonels  in  order  to  do  this 


LEAVENWORTH  COMMANDS       447 

job?"  The  regulars  kept  apart  from  the  reserves, 
forming  a  group  in  their  own  world.  In  their  messes 
the  talk  ran  on  promotions :  each  new  list  brought 
its  tragedies  for  men  who  found  themselves  jumped, 
and  its  triumphs  for  those  who  had  jumped  them. 
If  you  were  not  frequently  promoted,  it  was  taken 
as  a  sign  that  you  were  not  "  making  good."  Pro- 
motion depended  upon  the  good  will  of  your  supe- 
rior, and  sometimes,  naturally  and  humanly,  upon 
the  fact  that  you  might  have  served  with  him  at  an 
army  post.  Promotion  became  unconsciously  cor- 
rupting. Some  younger  men  who  received  their  stars 
after  swift  passage  through  the  lower  grades  hardly 
bore  their  honors  with  the  equanimity  of  their 
elders.  One  chief  of  staff  I  knew  had  a  Napoleonic 
grandeur.  He  hedged  himself  about  with  the  eti- 
quette of  royalty.  If  he  had  been  presented  with  a 
three-cornered  hat  of  the  kind  that  Napoleon  wore, 
he  would  have  accepted  it  in  all  seriousness.  Un- 
happily his  work  was  not  of  the  Napoleonic  stand- 
ard. There  was  another  chief  of  staff  who  was  just 
the  same  man  as  a  brigadier-general  that  he  had 
been  as  a  major.  He  never  seemed  busy;  his  work 
was  always  in  order;  his  tactics  were  successful.  He 
knew  how  to  win  men  to  his  service,  how  to  delegate 
authority.  Had  he  been  given  command  of  an  army 
he  would  have  carried  on  in  the  same  imperturbable 
fashion. 


448  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

"  It  will  be  hard  on  some  of  us  regulars,"  he  re- 
marked, "when  we  wake  up  the  'morning  after' 
and  find  ourselves  majors  back  in  the  good  old 
Philippines." 

Naturally,  in  this  environment,  the  reservists 
caught  the  contagion  of  promotion.  If  promotion 
were  the  criterion  of  having  done  your  "  bit,"  well, 
then,  what  would  your  friends  think  of  you  if  you 
returned  with  the  same  rank  you  had  when  you  left 
home  ?  When  you  did  return,  you  found  that  your 
friends  could  not  remember  whether  you  had  been 
a  major  or  a  colonel.  They  were  relieved  if  they 
might  call  you  "  mister  "  or  Tom  or  George.  It 
didn't  matter  to  them  what  kind  of  insignia  you  had 
as  long  as  you  had  been  "  over  there,"  doing  your 
bit.  They  had  perspective  which  was  hard  to  pre- 
serve in  France. 


XXVI 


OTHERS  OBEY 


Misfit  and  unfit  sorted  at  Blois — Clan  again — What  to  do  with 
the  "  dodo  " — Making  good  after  Blois — Its  significance  to  the 
regular — The  fear  of  Blois  in  its  effect  on  the  reservist — 
Faults  of  reserve  officers — Feeling  of  the  medicos — Staff  propa- 
ganda— Getting  to  troops — Staff  and   line — Slow  weeding  out. 

i 

When  the  promotion  disease  was  most  acute,  how- 
ever, the  word  promotion  never  exercised  over  the 
army  the  spell  of  the  word  Blois.  Though  Blois 
was  not  mentioned  in  the  press,  it  was  as  fa- 
miliar in  the  secrecy  of  the  army  world  as  Verdun, 
Ypres,  Paris,  or  Chateau-Thierry.  Every  officer 
who  was  uncertain  whether  or  not  he  was  pleasing 
his  superior  stood  in  fear  of  Blois,  which  was 
the  synonym  of  failure.  Downcast  generals  and 
lieutenants  traveled  together  from  the  front  to 
Blois. 

What  was  to  be  done  with  officers  who  broke 
down  in  health,  or  who  did  not  come  up  to  the 
standards  required  in  their  work?  They  might  be 
sent  home;  but  white-haired  generals  and  colonels 
who  had  reputations  as  able  officers  in  time  of  peace 
were  not  wanted  airing  their  grievances  on  the  steps 
of  the  Army  and  Navy  Building  in  Washington. 

449 


450 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


There  was  an  injustice,  too,  in  placing  on  any  officer 
the  stigma  of  having  been  sent  back  from  France, 
which  would  react  on  the  many  capable  officers 
who  were  recalled  from  France  in  order  to  apply 
their  experience  abroad  in  furthering  our  prepara- 
tions at  home.  Then,  too,  we  needed  the  service 
of  any  officer  who  could  do  any  kind  of  work 
in  France.  In  the  majority  of  instances  it  was  not 
so  much  a  question  of  being  unfit  as  being  "  misfit." 
The  thing  was  to  put  round  pegs  in  round  holes. 

The  town  of  Blois  near  Tours  became  a  depot 
for  classification  and  reassignment  of  officers  who 
had  been  relieved  by  their  superiors.  A  Leaven- 
worth man  who  was  in  charge  had  the  power  to 
reduce  an  officer  in  rank  if  he  thought  this  were 
warranted.  He  secretly  interrogated  the  arriving 
officer,  who  was  told  that  his  record  would  not  be 
considered  against  him;  his  superiors  might  have 
been  unjust  to  him;  if  he  had  "stubbed  his  toe," 
this  did  not  mean  that  he  would  do  it  again. 
Though  the  plan  was  as  logical  as  the  transfer  of 
an  employee  of  a  business  from  the  manufacturing 
to  the  selling  branch,  the  object  of  the  attention  felt 
the  humiliation  none  the  less.  Despite  all  propa- 
ganda to  alleviate  its  association  in  the  minds  of 
fellow-officers,  "  being  sent  to  Blois  "  had  only  one 
generally  accepted  significance,  which  was  wickedly 
unfair  to  many  a   victim.     There   were   superiors 


OTHERS  OBEY  451 

who  followed  their  subordinates  to  Blois;  while  the 
subordinates  were  later  promoted,  they  sank  into  the 
desuetude  of  a  routine  position.  Indigestion,  a 
burst  of  temper,  a  case  of  nerves,  of  prejudice,  of 
finding  a  scapegoat  for  a  senior's  mistakes,  might 
start  an  officer  away  from  the  front  with  his  unhappy 
travel  order.  I  knew  of  instances  where  it  was  a 
tribute  to  the  officer  that  he  had  been  sent :  a  tribute 
to  his  honest  effort,  his  initiative,  his  unselfish  spirit 
in  trying  to  do  his  duty  under  an  incompetent, 
irascible  superior,  who  himself  should  not  have  re- 
ceived the  consideration  of  Blois  but  been  sent  to 
a  labor  battalion,  in  the  hope  that  by  a  few  hours  of 
physical  effort  a  day  he  might  have  earned  a  part 
of  the  pay  and  the  pains  his  country  had  wasted  on 
him. 

Considering  how  valuable  was  the  regular's  pro- 
fessional training  for  combat,  and  considering  too 
that  only  half  of  the  regular  officers  ever  reached 
France,  it  was  surprising  how  many  regular  officers 
were  sent  from  the  front  to  Blois.  The  percentage 
of  regulars  who  failed  in  action  was  said  to  be  as 
large  as  the  percentage  of  reserves.  The  Leaven- 
worth group,  aiming  to  be  impartial  in  the  ruthless- 
ness  which  they  thought  their  duty,  declared  that 
when  a  man  failed  to  make  good  he  went,  whether 
regular  or  reserve. 

"  If  there's  a  reserve  officer  who  can  do  my  job 


452 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


better  than  I  can,  I  want  him  to  have  it,"  said  a 
regular  colonel  of  thirty-five.  "  I'll  give  all  I  have 
and  do  my  best  wherever  I  am  sent.  That's  service 
and  duty.  My  country  thought  I  was  fit  to  be  an 
officer.  It  paid  me  to  serve  where  I  could  serve 
best.  What  is  the  use  of  holding  to  the  clannish 
idea  that  any  regular  is  better  than  a  reserve?  That 
isn't  the  idea  of  efficiency.  If  a  man  who  has  served 
only  six  months  is  better  than  a  man  who  has  served 
thirty  years,  the  old  regular  ought  not  to  growl.  He 
ought  to  feel  ashamed.  He  is  beholden  to  his  coun- 
try for  having  given  him  a  livelihood  for  thirty 
years.  He  could  not  have  earned  as  good  a  one 
in  any  other  occupation." 

He  was  the  same  officer  who  had  spoken  his  con- 
victions after  my  remarks  at  the  maneuver  at 
Leavenworth.  Of  humble  origin,  proving  the  demo- 
cratic test  by  his  conduct,  he  was  an  honor  to  the 
profession  of  arms, — as  he  would  have  been  to  any 
profession.  The  whole  army  recognized  his  ability. 
Of  course  no  reserve  officer  or  National  Guard 
officer  could  be  better  than  he;  his  subordinates  were 
proud  to  serve  under  him.  If  his  reward  could  have 
been  judged  by  a  monetary  standard,  he  earned  all 
the  pay  he  had  ever  received  from  the  government 
by  one  month's  service  in  France.  He  would  return 
to  a  major's  rank  under  mediocre  officers,  whose 
work  he  now  directed  from  the  staff. 


OTHERS  OBEY  453 

Had  he  made  the  remarks  which  I  have  just 
quoted  to  reserve  officers  when  any  regulars  were 
present,  even  his  ability  would  not  have  saved  him 
from  the  charge  of  disloyalty  to  the  clan.  So  the 
strain  on  class  A  men  in  the  staff  or  in  the  line  was 
heavy.  As  Leavenworth  men,  the  Leavenworth 
men  stood  together,  thought  the  observing  reserves 
— and  with  them,  of  course,  I  include  National 
Guard  officers — while  the  regulars,  forming  up 
against  the  magic  inner  circle,  stood  together  as 
regulars  in  the  magic  outer  circle. 

The  human  equation  and  friendships  were  bound 
to  enter  into  the  honest  effort  at  impartiality. 
Here  was  a  brigadier-general  of  fifty-five  or  sixty 
who  had  been  your  commanding  officer  at  a  post. 
He  was  hopelessly  superannuated.  There  was  no 
place  of  responsibility  in  keeping  with  his  rank 
where  his  services  would  not  be  fatal  to  efficiency. 
No  one  desired  to  hurt  his  feelings.  Diplomacy 
must  arrange  cushions  for  him.  He  was  given  a 
car,  and  aides,  and  sent  about  on  inspections,  to 
make  reports  which  were  received  with  serious  at- 
tention, or  he  was  given  a  first-class  officer  as  chief 
of  staff.  One  of  these  amiable  "  dodos,"  as  the 
regulars  called  them  among  themselves — never  in 
the  presence  of  a  reserve  officer — complained,  so 
the  story  ran,  that  "  another  general  had  a  cut-glass 
vase  for  flowers  in  his  limousine,  and  he  had  none." 


454  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

The  strife  for  cars  befitting  rank  was  almost  as 
vigorous  as  for  promotion,  while  some  regimental 
commanders  rode  in  side-cars  or  cars  of  a  "  low 
rank";  but  they,  who  passed  through  shell-fire  and 
bumped  over  shell-craters,  would  not  have  ex- 
changed their  commands  for  the  most  luxurious  of 
limousines  flying  along  good  roads  out  of  sound  of 
the  guns.  It  was  hard,  indeed,  that  upstarts  from 
Leavenworth  in  the  name  of  John  J.  Pershing 
should  consign  to  Blois,  and  from  Blois  to  a  base 
section  of  the  S.  O.  S.,  veterans  of  thirty  and  forty 
years'  service  in  the  regulars.  There  was  another 
method  applied  on  one  occasion,  when  a  division 
commander  told  a  brigadier  who  had  mismanaged 
his  command  that  his  brigade  would  be  cared  for 
in  the  morrow's  attack,  and  that  he  would  have  his 
chance  to  redeem  himself  in  the  manner  of  a  brave 
man,  by  going  "  over  the  top."  He  went,  of  course, 
winning  that  respect  which  is  given  every  man,  re- 
gardless of  age  or  ability,  for  unflinching  courage. 
Others  might  have  been  given  the  same  opportunity 
to  win  gold  letters  in  the  memorial  hall  at  West 
Point  as  an  enduring  epitaph;  but  there  were  strong 
arguments  against  this.  The  incompetent  were  not 
fit  for  the  serious  business  of  combat  organizations; 
men's  lives  could  not  be  trusted  to  their  direction. 
In  case  of  death,  the  officer's  widow  would  receive 
a  small  pension,  while  if  he  survived  and  was  re- 


OTHERS  OBEY  455 

tired,  he  would  receive  retired  pay  enough  to  assure 
comfort  to  his  family. 

The  human  equation  reappears.  A  reservist  was 
a  stranger,  a  regular  might  be  an  old  comrade,  call- 
ing on  a  senior's  affection  and  the  loyalty  to  clan, 
when  the  latter  considered  sending  an  officer  to 
Blois.  Still  other  influences  might  make  a  regular's 
shortcomings  more  easily  forgiven  than  a  reservist's. 
If  a  regular  did  not  succeed  in  carrying  out  orders, 
as  he  was  a  professional,  failure  must  be  accepted  as 
unavoidable.  In  a  word,  if  Ed  or  John  with  whom 
you  had  served  could  not  put  the  trains  through  or 
take  a  machine-gun  nest,  then  it  was  impossible. 

There  was  no  such  personal  standard  of  profes- 
sionalism to  apply  to  a  reservist.  Success  must  be 
the  only  standard  for  him.  On  the  other  hand,  I 
did  not  envy  some  Leavenworth  men,  who  leaned 
over  backward  in  being  resolute  to  comrades,  when 
they  should  revert  to  their  original  rank  and  be  once 
more  serving  under  officers  whom  they  had  com- 
manded from  the  staff.  "  He's  got  it  in  for  me," 
was  an  expression  sometimes  heard,  as  you  will  hear 
it  in  different  forms  in  any  class  community.  It  was 
an  excuse  for  having  been  sent  to  Blois.  Mean- 
while, new  grudges  were  being  formed.  It  was  dra- 
matic when  a  regular  officer,  who  had  been  sent  to 
Blois,  upon  reassignment  to  the  front  won  his 
brigadiership  in  a  brilliant  action;  but  not  so  dra- 


456 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


matic  as  when  a  National  Guard  brigadier,  who  had 
had  his  stars  removed  at  Blois,  refused  a  colonelcy 
in  the  rear,  received  a  majority  in  the  line,  returned 
as  a  major  to  his  own  brigade,  and  was  killed  in 
leading  his  battalion  gallantly  in  a  charge. 

The  heartbreaks  among  the  regulars  must  be 
more  lasting  than  among  the  reservists.  War  was 
the  regular's  profession.  He  returned  to  live  with 
his  reputation  in  the  army  world.  The  reservists 
returned  to  the  civil  world,  where  the  war  would 
soon  be  forgotten.  This  accounted  for  the  greed- 
iness for  promotion,  which  throughout  the  lives  of 
regular  officers  would  be  the  mark  of  their  careers, 
while  the  guerdon  of  the  future  for  the  reservist 
was  success  in  another  occupation. 

'  Do  these  reservists  want  to  jump  in  and  take 
everything  away  from  us,  when  they  are  in  the  army 
only  for  the  war?  "  as  a  veteran  regular  complained 
when  he  was  not  receiving  the  promotion  which  he 
thought  was  his  due. 

The  more  subordinates  you  had,  the  more  chance 
of  promotion. 

"  Get  a  lot  of  young  officers  around  you,  form  a 
bureau,  and  you  will  get  a  colonelcy  in  the  new 
tables  of  organization,"  said  one  regular  officer  to 
another,  both  efficient,  upstanding  men. 

Toward  the  end  we  did  not  lack  officers  in  num- 
bers for  service  in  the  rear.     Our  problem  was  to 


OTHERS  OBEY  457 

prevent  unnecessary  expansion  in  superfluities.  Our 
American  energy  was  under  pressure.  The  thing  for 
regular  or  reserve  was  to  show  that  he  was  as  busy 
as  any  Leavenworth  man.  Both  the  British  and 
French  said  we  had  too  many  typewriters,  and  were 
prone  to  excess  motion,  despite  our  wonderful  ac- 
complishment. It  was  an  obvious  criticism,  by 
officers  in  an  established  organization,  of  an  organi- 
zation which  was  in  the  throes  of  creation.  Big  men 
might  work  with  a  purpose ;  but  little  men  might  be 
flailing  out  their  vitality  on  old  straw,  in  order  to 
make  a  "  show  "  before  the  senior  who  might  either 
promote  them  or  send  them  to  Blois. 

One  day  a  reserve  officer  suggested  to  a  regular 
senior,  who  had  been  laboring  long  and  hard  over 
a  problem,  a  solution  which  could  be  expressed  in 
half  a  dozen  lines,  leaving  the  execution  of  the 
policy  stated  to  subordinates.  That  conscientious 
regular  trained  in  Leavenworth  industry  shook  his 
head.  He  sent  in  ten  pages,  after  burning  the  mid- 
night oil,  which  finally  went  up  to  Harbord  himself. 
Harbord  dictated  a  few  sentences  which  duplicated 
the  reservist's  suggestion.  "  In  line  with  my  idea !  " 
said  the  regular.  There  was  no  reason  why  the 
reservist  should  expect  credit.  He  was  in  service  to 
help  in  any  way  he  could  to  hasten  the  end  of  the 
war. 

I  have  in  mind  one  regular  staff  chief,  who  won 


458  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

promotion  and  great  credit  because  of  his  able 
subordinates.  "  He  never  knew,"  as  one  of  the 
subordinates  said.  I  am  not  sure  that  he  was  en- 
tirely unconscious,  for  he  said:  "These  reservists 
have  a  lot  of  ideas.  Of  course  they  don't  know  any- 
thing about  war."  By  the  time  the  serious  fighting 
began,  they  knew  more  than  he  knew.  They  were 
shrewd  enough  to  let  him  think  that  their  knowl- 
edge was  his. 

Of  course,  he  always  held  over  them  the  fear  of 
Blois  and  the  promise  of  promotion.  That  fear  of 
Blois  killed  many  an  officer's  initiative.  It  made  inde- 
pendent men  into  courtiers  for  favor  from  men  for 
whom  in  their  hearts  they  had  no  respect.  The 
weak  tried  to  play  safe,  as  they  studied  a  senior's 
characteristics.  Lack  of  psychologic  contact  between 
the  army  post  world  and  the  world  of  the  nation  as 
a  whole,  and  overwork,  overworry,  and  lack  of  ap- 
preciation of  their  efforts  sent  many  officers  to  Blois. 
It  was  one  sure  way  of  having  a  brief  holiday. 
Young  reservists  especially  became  discouraged  and 
fatalistic  when  they  found  that  they  were  incapable 
of  ever  pleasing  an  irascible  senior.  Others  who 
had  the  right  kind  of  superior  developed  under  his 
encouraging  and  understanding  direction.  All  was 
a  gamble  in  how  commanding  officers  themselves 
developed  under  the  test  of  war. 

A   certain   suspicion   of  civilians   of  whom   they 


OTHERS  OBEY  459 

knew  so  little  had  its  inevitable  influence  in  keeping 
regulars  in  all  the  important  positions,  even  in  the 
S.  O.  S.  The  army  had  to  take  the  responsibility, 
and  the  army  must  therefore  keep  authority  in  its 
own  hands.  Was  it  surprising,  considering  the  life 
they  had  led,  that  the  regulars  should  think  that 
civilians  could  not  understand  the  honor  and  the 
ethics  of  the  service  which  they  had  so  jealously 
guarded  against  politicians  and  a  misinformed  pub- 
lic? Civilians  were  shrewd  in  worldly  ways;  they 
might  use  their  positions  for  profit;  they  might  in- 
culcate bad  gospel.  I  heard  of  no  peculation  in  that 
enormous  and  scattered  organization,  buying  such 
gigantic  quantities  of  supplies.  We  may  have  been 
extravagant,  but  we  were  clean — very  clean,  com- 
pared to  the  political  contracts  of  Civil  War  times. 
The  regulars  kept  to  the  honest  traditions,  even  if 
some  of  their  officers  had  become  "  dead  from  the 
chin  up,"  to  use  a  regular  army  expression.  As  an 
observer  I  dare  indulge  in  only  a  few  of  the  regu- 
lars' tart  sayings  about  one  another,  sayings  which 
of  themselves  were  symptomatic  of  our  restless 
energy  for  achievement,  and  of  standards  which 
were  formed  on  achievement  rather  than  pretension. 
If  there  were  any  graft,  it  was  that  of  desire  for 
power,  of  travel  orders  to  see  the  front  and  France, 
and  of  other  human  weaknesses  which  were  an  in- 
evitable accompaniment  of  active  ambition. 


460  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

It  was  my  fortune  to  see  the  staff  and  the  supply 
systems,  to  go  in  and  out  of  the  different  head- 
quarters, and  on  up  to  the  front  itself.  I  had  the 
keys  to  the  doors  of  all  the  many  compartments,  each 
immured  by  the  nerve-racking  pressure  of  its  in- 
dustry and  exposure  to  death.  I  also  saw  the  other 
armies  at  work.  I  knew  the  faults  of  reserves  as 
well  as  of  regulars.  There  were  young  officers  of 
the  line,  good  in  scholarship  and  drill  at  the  train- 
ing camps,  who,  not  from  any  want  of  courage  but 
from  inability,  failed  under  fire.  Floating  in  on  the 
wave  of  the  quartermaster  and  ordnance  corps  in 
the  hasty  granting  of  commissions  was  many  a  major 
and  captain  who  was  worthless.  Some  had  never 
earned  in  their  occupations  in  civil  life  the  pay  they 
were  receiving  as  officers.  These  were  most  ambi- 
tious for  promotion.  They  were  always  grumbling 
that  their  organizing  capacity  was  not  recognized. 
To  the  regular  they  were  examples  in  point,  proving 
the  wisdom  of  expert  control  to  the  last  degree. 

Other  reserve  officers  who  were  specialists  in  a 
business  or  profession,  now  that  they  were  at  war, 
considered  it  a  hardship  to  have  to  do  the  same  work 
that  they  had  been  doing  in  civil  life.  Others  by 
their  propensities  for  unbridled  talk  offended  the 
regular  ethics  of  secretiveness.  Others  who  had 
been  regarded  as  men  of  ability  in  their  occupations 
were  living  on  their  reputations  no  less  than  some 


OTHERS  OBEY  461 

of  the  older  regulars.  Under  army  conditions,  in 
poor  quarters  on  foreign  soil,  they  seem  to  have  had 
a  further  relapse.  Men  of  reputation  in  civil  life, 
who  were  used  to  having  their  work  known  through 
the  press,  once  they  were  in  uniform  felt  their  help- 
less anonymity.  Leavenworth,  in  its  unfamiliarity 
with  civil  life,  sticking  fast  to  its  prerogatives  and 
its  theory  of  war,  said  that  all  reserves,  line  and 
staff,  should  be  given  a  hell's  trial,  and  that  those 
who  survived  would  one  day  receive  their  reward — 
after  all  the  regulars  had  been  looked  after,  as  the 
reservists  remarked. 

Among  the  reserve  officers  were  the  physicians 
and  surgeons,  the  most  notable  we  had,  in  one  of 
the  most  progressive  of  professions,  who  came  to 
the  aid  of  the  army  medical  corps,  which  had  to 
expand  its  organization  with  all  the  suddenness  of 
the  quartermaster  corps.  The  standards  of  admit- 
tance to  the  army  medical  corps  had  been  high;  it 
had  expanded  its  vision  in  sanitation  in  the  Philip- 
pines, Cuba,  and  the  Canal  Zone;  its  practice  was 
with  soldiers  in  time  of  peace.  The  reserve  medico, 
whether  a  great  surgeon,  a  laboratory  expert,  or 
head  of  a  hospital,  was  subject  to  a  regular  senior, 
often  much  younger  than  he,  whose  capacities  might 
be  first-class,  or  as  inferior  as  his  prejudices  were 
numerous.  No  experts  from  civil  life,  in  their 
sacred  desire  for  efficiency,  could  feel  the  restrictions 


462  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

on  their  initiative  more  than  the  reserve  medical 
officers;  but  be  it  said  that  we  did  build  hospitals, 
we  did  equip  them  well,  and,  with  General  Per- 
shing's resolute  support,  the  exacting  health  disci- 
pline included  precautions  against  that  disease  which 
has  ever  been  the  curse  of  armies. 

Leavenworth  would  have  no  advertising.  Not 
only  for  reasons  o£  military  secrecy  would  censor- 
ship have  no  names  mentioned,  but  also  in  keeping 
with  the  ethics  of  regular  officers  that  publicity  was 
unbecoming — a  theory  that  was  fine  in  the  abstract, 
but  in  the  application  had  to  deal  with  human 
nature.  The  names  of  the  Leavenworth  men  them- 
selves, holding  the  fates  of  division  generals  in  their 
hands,  were  unknown  to  the  public  and  to  the  mass 
of  the  army.  Not  reports  in  the  press,  glorifying 
a  unit  or  its  commander,  but  the  military  judgment 
of  superiors  was  to  form  the  criterion  of  praise. 
Never,  indeed,  had  such  power  come  to  a  group  of 
men  as  to  the  graduates  of  that  sequestered  school 
in  the  wheat  fields  of  Kansas,  in  charge  of  two  mil- 
lion men.  It  was  interesting  to  watch  how  rapidly 
some  of  them  grew  under  responsibility,  how  used 
they  became  to  accepting  power  as  a  matter  of 
course;  and  equally  interesting  how  others  remained 
scholars  of  Leavenworth,  their  vision  still  shut 
within  its  walls. 

They  directed  policy  to  keep  up  morale.     Their 


OTHERS  OBEY  463 

propaganda  never  forgot  the  army;  and  finally  in- 
cluded, to  my  regret,  that  of  hate  and  of  atrocities 
accepted  on  hearsay.  The  Stars  and  Stripes,  the 
A.  E.  F.  newspaper,  brought  to  France  all  the  head- 
lines, the  snappy  paragraphs,  the  cartoons,  the  slang, 
which  knit  California  to  Maine,  to  arouse  our  en- 
thusiasm for  the  war.  Our  communiques,  much 
studied  and  revised,  had  facility  in  concealment  in 
place  of  outright  prevarication,  which  was  the  pre- 
vailing fashion  to  keep  up  the  spirits  of  the  public 
behind  the  army  by  assurances  that  it  was  the  enemy 
who  was  making  the  mistakes  and  suffering  the 
heavier  casualties.  Fashions  in  uniform  received 
much  attention,  too,  from  those  with  that  inclination 
of  mind.  The  overseas  cap,  without  a  visor  to  keep 
sun  or  rain  out  of  the  eyes,  was  none  the  less  dis- 
tinctive. We  might  have  designed  a  better  one  the 
day  we  started  troops  to  Europe,  if  our  staff  at  home 
had  had  information  about  European  climatic  con- 
ditions; but  the  number  of  things  in  which  we  might 
have  shown  prevision  are  too  numerous  to  mention. 
They  do  not  count  now;  for  the  war  was  won.  The 
Allied  communiques  were  right.  Our  victory  proves 
that  the  enemy  made  all  the  mistakes. 

Considering  the  many  regulars  used  in  organiza- 
tion and  instruction  in  France,  the  number  of  regular 
officers  who  served  at  the  front  must  be,  if  exception 
is  made  of  the  youngsters  from  West  Point  and  the 


464 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


provisional  regular  officers,  relatively  small.  Re- 
acting to  a  "  million  men  rising  to  arms  in  their 
shirt-sleeves,"  and  to  the  popular  conception  of 
leadership  as  an  officer  rushing  at  the  head  of  his 
men  in  a  charge,  Leavenworth  held  strictly  to  the 
idea  of  the  chessboard  system,  which  kept  com- 
manders, including  regimental,  in  touch  with  their 
communications,  instead  of  leading  charges,  the  bet- 
ter to  direct  the  tactical  movements  of  their  units. 
In  the  National  Guard  and  National  Army,  the 
majority  of  the  majors  as  well  as  the  captains  and 
lieutenants  were  from  civil  life;  so,  too,  were  the 
captains  and  lieutenants  in  the  regular  divisions,  al- 
ways excepting  the  regular  officers,  who  did  not 
average  one  out  of  six  in  the  average  regular 
battalion. 

No  army  staff  was  more  given  to  the  policy  of 
alternating  between  line  and  staff  than  ours.  Every 
officer  on  the  staff  felt  that  he  had  a  right  to  lead 
a  regiment  or  brigade  before  the  war  was  over. 
Transfers  were  frequent.  The  result  was  gratifying 
to  individual  ambition.  A  line  officer  who  had  just 
learned  field  command  took  the  place  of  a  staff 
officer  who  was  just  becoming  expert  in  his  branch 
of  staff  work.  The  newcomer  had  to  start  in  learn- 
ing fundamentals  when  his  predecessor  had  been 
under  a  strain  to  keep  up  with  the  rapid  develop- 
ments; but  how  could  you  deny  Tom,  who  was  once 


OTHERS  OBEY  465 

your  lieutenant  in  the  Philippines,  his  desire,  after 
three  months'  confinement,  to  be  "  in  it "  for  a  while 
at  the  front?  When  he  showed  peculiar  fitness  for 
office  work,  the  British  and  French  would  have  kept 
him  in  an  office.  He  had  his  daily  exercise,  and  his 
periods  of  leave  when  he  might  recuperate  from  the 
mental  strain,  which  was  all  the  worse  for  a  man 
whose  heart  was  with  the  troops.  The  Germans, 
least  of  all  inclined  to  consider  the  personal  equation, 
had  interchangeable  corps  staffs.  When  one  became 
stale,  it  went  into  rest  in  the  same  manner  as  a  divi- 
sion of  infantry,  while  a  fresh  staff  took  its  place. 
Their  system  was  the  same  as  having  two  office 
forces,  interchanging  at  intervals,  in  a  business  where 
the  offices  were  open  night  and  day.  We  had  not 
enough  officers  to  allow  holidays.  All  must  serve 
double  the  usual  office  hours  in  any  concern,  Sun- 
days included — work  as  long  as  there  was  work  to 
do,  snatching  intervals  of  sleep.  In  this  the  Leaven- 
worth men,  I  repeat,  set  all  an  industrious  example. 
Their  greatest  fault  first  and  last  was  lack  of 
psychologic  touch  with  the  people  of  their  country. 
They  were  too  remote  from  the  troops.  "  But  you 
forget  the  men,"  as  the  C.-in-C.  used  to  say  to  the 
chess-players. 

No  staff  can  ever  be  popular  with  the  line;  and 
no  line  can  ever  satisfy  the  staff  which  works  out  its 
plans  of  attack  on  paper.     The  staff  serves  at  a 


466  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

headquarters,  and  the  line  in  the  open  under  fire. 
The  difference  of  the  human  equation  is  that  between 
security  and  comfort,  and  death  and  hardship,  which 
no  philosophy  can  bridge.  A  staff  officer  who  ap- 
peared at  the  front  always  looked  conspicuously 
neat  and  conspicuously  wise,  as  exotic  as  a  man  in  a 
morning  coat  on  a  cowman's  ranch.  The  line  officer 
in  earth-stained  uniform,  lean  from  his  effort,  eyes 
glistening  with  the  fever  of  battle  dangers  shared 
with  his  men,  as  he  entered  a  staff  room  to  report 
was  equally  exotic  in  his  surroundings,  while  he  had 
a  personal  dignity  whose  chivalrous  appeal  no  one 
could  resist. 

Yet  someone  must  do  staff  work.  Some  directing 
minds  must  arrange  for  the  movement  of  the  troops 
and  their  transport  according  to  a  system,  and  as- 
sure the  presence  of  supplies  and  ammunition; 
someone  must  sit  near  the  centering  nerves  of  wire 
and  wireless  and  telephone  and  messengers,  and 
maneuver  the  units  in  battle.  The  more  comfort- 
able they  were,  the  better  they  did  their  work,  inas- 
much as  there  was  no  reason  for  their  sleeping  on 
the  ground  when  they  could  have  shelter. 

Everyone  familiar  with  the  statics  of  war  on  the 
Western  Front  knew  that  you  might  have  a  good 
lunch  at  a  division  or  corps  headquarters,  and  two 
or  three  hours  later  you  might  be  floundering  in  the 
mud,  gas  mask  on,  under  bombardment.     If  you 


OTHERS  OBEY  467 

spent  a  day  in  the  trenches,  your  feelings  became 
those  of  the  men  who  were  there,  you  knew  the  non- 
sense that  was  written  for  public  consumption  in 
order  to  keep  the  public  stalwart  for  the  war,  and 
you  held  visitors  and  staff  officers  who  came  sight- 
seeing in  the  kind  of  humorous  contempt  that  those 
who  "  busted  bronchos  "  held  the  tenderfoot  in  the 
days  when  realities  in  the  wild  west  resembled  the 
moving-picture  shows  of  contemporary  times.  The 
officer  relieved  from  staff  duty  for  the  front  was 
subject  to  the  same  influence.  He  was  not  long  in 
command  of  troops  before  he  began  abusing  the 
staff  for  its  preposterous  orders,  while  the  line 
officer  assigned  to  the  staff  was  soon  talking  about 
the  incapability  of  the  line  to  carry  out  his  direc- 
tions. 

Gradually  slipping  the  round  pegs  into  round 
holes  and  the  square  pegs  into  square  holes,  flounder- 
ing and  stumbling,  but  keeping  on,  the  process  of 
organization  continued,  while  the  resolute  will 
of  the  Commander-in-Chief  laid  down  the  lines  of 
policy.  For  him  to  give  an  order,  as  I  have  said, 
did  not  mean  that  it  would  be  carried  out.  He  him- 
self was  the  victim  of  the  system :  one  man  depend- 
ent upon  others  for  the  execution  of  his  plans,  and 
largely  dependent  too  upon  inspections  by  others  for 
reports  of  progress.  His  adjutants  could  form 
chains  of  influence   of  which   he   was   unconscious. 


468 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


"  Insubordination  "  is  the  most  glaring  of  military 
offenses,  next  to  timidity  under  fire.  It  cannot  be 
openly  practised;  but  within  the  bounds  of  any  closed 
society  the  effects  of  insubordination  can  be  gained. 
To  trace  responsibility  in  time  of  action  is  laborious 
through  channels  where  officers  familiar  with  the 
craft  of  "  passing  the  buck  "  may  spin  red  tape  end- 
lessly, though  on  other  occasions  they  cut  it  with 
facility.  Yet  the  phrase,  "  the  C.-in-C.  wants  it," 
was  the  shibboleth  of  power.  In  war  a  democracy 
is  right  to  confer  autocracy.  This  means  efficiency 
in  concentration  according  as  the  character  of  its  peo- 
ple is  sound  and  efficient.  The  C.-in-C.  and  all  pro- 
gressive officers  had  to  fight  the  influences  inherent 
in  autocracy,  which  eventually  make  permanent 
autocracy  effete  through  formality  and  intrigue. 

The  leaven  was  working;  we  were  passing  through 
the  inevitable  evolution  which  had  been  foreseen. 
The  officers  who  had  come  through  the  schools  and 
training  camps,  watchful  if  silent,  had  learned  their 
fundamentals  thoroughly  and  up  to  date,  without 
having  to  unlearn  pre-war  teachings.  They  were 
finding,  as  the  Canadians  and  Australians  found, 
that,  once  on  the  inside,  the  art  of  making  war  was 
not  such  a  profound  technical  secret  as  they  had 
thought.  They  were  now  able  to  judge  their 
seniors  by  professional  as  well  as  human  standards. 
Regulars,  of  the  type  who  felt  their  feet  slipping, 


OTHERS  OBEY  469 

were  naturally  tenacious  in  keeping  up  the  mystery, 
which  was  the  capital  of  the  inefficient.  Regulars 
who  were  sure  of  themselves — having  learned  more 
of  war  in  six  months  than  in  all  their  service — glad- 
dened at  the  prospect  of  the  fulfillment  of  their 
dream  of  a  great  army,  which  was  equal  to  any  in 
the  world.  They  felt  the  fewness  of  their  numbers 
on  the  top  of  this  tidal  wave  of  the  nation's  man- 
hood in  arms,  which  they  must  ride.  An  army  has 
its  public  opinion,  that  of  the  mass  of  officers  and 
men.  Great  leaders  realize  that  this  is  supreme. 
Moltke  courted  it  no  less  than  Napoleon;  Hinden- 
burg  sought  to  hold  it,  and  lost  it.  The  American 
army  was  becoming  the  country's  army — the  coun- 
try as  a  whole  trained  to  arms.  The  youth  and  the 
brains  of  the  country  making  war  its  business  had 
too  large  resources  in  leadership,  once  it  had  learned 
the  technique  of  leadership,  to  submit  to  class  rule. 
Your  old  regular  sergeant,  your  old  regular  colonel 
must  yield  to  the  survival  of  the  fittest  in  the  com- 
petition of  the  millions.  At  the  end  of  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  battle,  excluding  at  the  most  twenty  per 
cent  of  the  regulars  of  sufficient  rank  for  battalion 
and  regimental  command,  I  should  say  that  there 
were  five  officers  from  civil  life  who  were  better 
than  any  regular  in  leading  a  battalion,  and  two  or 
three  better  than  any  regular  in  leading  a  regiment. 
With  the  reservists  I  include  the  National  Guard 


470  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

officers,  though  they  had  had  military  experience 
before  the  war.  Arms  was  not  their  regular  call- 
ing; but  they  were  to  prove  that  they  were  not 
amateurs.  Our  plans,  as  I  have  said,  until  the  late 
summer  all  looked  forward  to  a  spring  campaign. 
In  the  winter  that  preceded  it  there  would  have  been 
many  heartbreaks  among  the  regulars;  for  the  evo- 
lution no  longer  held  in  check  would  have  had  its 
fruition.  The  tidal  wave  would  have  broken 
through  the  barriers;  we  should  have  had  many 
colonels  and  brigadiers  from  among  the  young 
officers  from  the  training  camps  and  the  National 
[Guard. 

Called  to  the  Meuse-Argonne  battle,  without  ade- 
quate preparation  or  equipment,  our  organization 
imperfect,  remarkable  as  it  was  considering  the  cir- 
cumstances, the  burden  of  the  leadership  which 
meant  success,  as  the  account  already  shows,  was 
with  the  officers  from  civil  life.  They  led  the  com- 
bat units  against  the  machine-gun  nests.  Did  pro- 
motion matter  for  the  moment  to  that  sergeant  who 
took  over  the  platoon  when  his  lieutenant  was 
mashed  by  a  shell  or  received  a  machine-gun  bullet 
in  the  heart?  Did  it  matter  to  the  second  lieutenant 
who  was  the  only  commissioned  officer  left  to  lead 
a  company?  To  the  boy  captain,  who  had  fought 
his  way  up  from  the  ranks,  or  had  not  finished  his 
college  course  before  he  went  to  a  training-camp, 


OTHERS  OBEY  471 

as  undaunted  he  took  charge  of  a  battalion  and  con- 
tinued the  attack?  Staffs,  sitting  beside  the  tele- 
phones, waited  on  their  reports.  Did  promotion 
matter  to  the  men  ?  I  am  weary  of  writing  of  staff 
and  officers,  who  must  have  their  part  in  the  narra- 
tive. The  men !  We  have  heard  much  of  them. 
We  shall  hear  more.  They  won  the  battle — a  sol- 
dier's battle.  They  saved  generals  and  staff.  It  is 
their  part  which  sent  an  old  observer  of  wars  homq 
in  pride  and  gratitude. 


XXVII 


AMERICAN  MANHOOD 


Visualizing  "  over  there  " — Camping  out  in  France — Unimportance 
of  the  leaders — Adopting  "  Jake  " — America  finding  maturity 
— Playing  the  game — The  coating  of  propaganda. 

If  one  by  one  all  the  sounds  at  the  front  from  the 
thunders  of  the  artillery  to  the  rumble  of  the 
columns  of  motor-trucks  were  to  pass  from  my 
recollection,  the  last  to  go  would  be  that  of  the 
rasping  beat  of  the  infantry's  hobnails  upon  the 
roads  in  the  long  stretches  of  the  night,  whether  in 
the  vigor  of  a  rested  division,  in  rhythmic  step  going 
forward  into  line,  or  of  an  exhausted  division  in 
dragging  steps  coming  out  of  line.  It  was  me- 
chanical and  yet  infinitely  human,  this  throbbing  of 
the  pulse  of  a  country's  man-power. 

Whether  or  not  the  draft  boards  were  always 
impartial,  whether  or  not  favoritism  provided  safe 
berths  for  certain  sons,  I  know  that  the  fathers  or 
friends  who  kept  a  young  man  of  fighting  age  out 
of  uniform  or  away  from  France  did  him  an  ill  turn. 
He  had  missed  something  which  those  who  went  to 
training  camps  or  to  France  were  to  gain :  something 

472 


AMERICAN  MANHOOD  473 

not    to    be    judged    in    terms    of    medals    or   bank 
balances. 

When  the  men  returned  from  overseas,  people 
wondered  at  their  inarticulateness  over  their  expe- 
riences. Subscribing  to  Liberty  Loans  and  War 
Savings  Stamps,  eating  war  bread,  making  innumer- 
able sacrifices,  relatives  and  friends  had  been  living 
in  their  habitual  world,  traversing  the  same  streets 
or  fields  in  their  daily  work,  and  meeting  the  same 
people, — and  sleeping  in  their  accustomed  beds. 
The  war  news  that  they  had  read  came  through  the 
censorship,  speaking  in  the  assuring  voice  of  propa- 
ganda, which  had  men  cheering  and  singing  in 
battle.  Their  sons  and  brothers  had  been  in  another 
world,  whose  wonders,  agony,  and  drudgery  had 
become  the  routine  of  existence  in  the  face  of  death, 
which  was  also  routine.  They  had  seen  the  realities 
of  war  behind  the  curtain,  which  had  offered  the  pic- 
tures of  war  as  it  was  designed  to  be  seen  by  the 
public.  There  was  so  much  to  say  that  they  found 
themselves  saying  nothing  to  auditors  who  did  not 
know  that  the  Meuse-Argonne  was  a  greater  battle 
than  Chateau-Thierry,  or  that  the  S.  O.  S.  was  the 
Services  of  Supply,  or  the  difference  between  rolling 
kitchens  and  the  ammunition  train.  Some  finally 
worked  up  a  story  which  was  the  kind  that  friends 
liked  to  hear.  Only  when  they  had  their  American 
Legion  gatherings  would  they  be  able  to  find  a  com- 


474  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

mon  ground  where  all  their  fundamental  references 
would  be  understood. 

Much  was  written  about  the  democratic  results  of 
millionaire  and  bootblack,  farmer's  son  and  son  of 
the  tenements,  day  laborer  and  cotton-wool  youth, 
fastidious  about  his  cravats,  mixing  together  in  the 
ranks.  At  the  training  camps  our  soldiers  were  on 
the  background  of  home,  and  they  were  not  facing 
death  together.  They  knew  their  own  country  by 
railroad  journeys  and  by  living  with  men  from  dif- 
ferent States;  but  some  observers  think  that  one 
does  not  really  know  his  own  country  until  he  has 
seen  other  countries.  The  training  camp  had  be- 
come  a  kind  of  home.  Its  discipline  was  modest 
beside  that  of  France;  there  were  no  hardships 
except  the  hard  drill  and  routine.  In  France  our 
soldier  had  no  home.  He  was  always  changing  his 
boarding  place,  though  never  his  task  as  a  fighting 
man. 

He  did  not  see  France  as  the  tourist  saw  it,  from 
a  car  spinning  past  finished  old  landscapes,  between 
avenues  of  trees  along  roads  that  linked  together 
red-tile-roofed  villages,  while  his  chauffeur  asked 
him,  after  he  had  had  a  good  dinner  at  an  inn,  at 
what  time  he  wanted  his  car  in  the  morning.  He 
marched  these  roads  under  his  pack,  often  all  night 
long,  while  he  was  under  orders  not  to  strike  a 
match  to  light  a  cigarette.     He  was  drenched  with 


AMERICAN  MANHOOD  475 

winter  rain  when  he  was  conducted  to  a  barn  door 
and  told  to  crawl  up  into  the  hayloft,  or  conducted 
to  a  house  door  where  he  stretched  himself  on  the 
floor  in  a  room  that  had  no  heat. 

He  was  billeted  in  villages  where  the  people  had 
been  billeting  soldiers  for  four  years.  They  wanted 
the  privacy  of  their  homes  again  as  surely  as  he 
wanted  to  be  back  in  his  own  home.  The  roads  over 
which  he  marched  he  had  to  help  repair,  in  winter 
rains,  when  old  cathedral  spires  lacked  the  impres- 
siveness  which  they  had  to  the  tourists  because  they 
looked  as  cold  as  everything  else,  and  when  pic- 
turesque, winding  canals  merely  looked  wet  when 
everything  was  wet. 

He  knew  other  roads  which  were  swept  by  the 
blasts  of  hell;  he  saw  the  beautiful  landscapes  through 
the  mud  of  trenches  and  from  the  filthy  fox-holes 
where  he  waited  in  hourly  expectation  of  an  attack; 
he  knew  the  beautiful  woods  which  fleck  the  rolling 
landscape  with  their  patches  of  green  as  the  best 
possible  places  for  being  gassed. 

The  hand  of  authority  was  on  him  even  in  his 
holidays — he,  the  free  American.  He  might  not  go 
beyond  certain  limits  when  he  went  for  a  walk,  for 
otherwise  all  our  soldiers  within  walking  distance  of 
the  largest  town  would  spend  the  day  there,  to  the 
discomfiture  of  discipline  and  French  regulations. 
If  he  secured  leave,  it  was  not  to  the  Paris  of  which 


476 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


he  dreamed,  but  to  the  area  which  the  army  had 
prescribed.  For  months  and  months  our  men  fought 
and  marched,  going  and  coming  past  Paris,  without 
a  glimpse  of  the  city  of  their  desire.  That  Paris 
was  not  good  for  them  all  the  high  authorities 
agreed;  besides,  their  services  were  too  valuable  to 
be  spared  for  sight-seeing. 

From  the  day  of  their  arrival  they  were  under 
the  whip  of  a  great  necessity:  first,  of  keeping  the 
Germans  from  winning  the  war,  and  then  of  win- 
ning the  war  before  Christmas  came.  In  the  last 
stages  of  the  war,  they  bore  more  than  American 
soldiers  have  ever  borne — more  than  the  British,  in 
their  own  limited  sector  with  its  settled  appointments 
a  day's  travel  from  England;  more  than  the  French, 
fighting  in  their  own  country  with  leave  to  go  to 
their  homes — their  own  homes — once  in  four 
months.  Our  men  had  a  real  rest  only  when  they 
were  wounded  or  ill  and  were  sent  back  to  the  hos- 
pitals and  rest  camps. 

When  a  soldier  was  not  fighting,  somebody  was 
lecturing  to  him.  His  education  was  never  com- 
plete. There  was  some  new  gas  which  he  must  avoid, 
some  new  wrinkle  in  fighting  machine-guns  which  he 
must  learn.  As  he  had  so  much  lecturing  on  the 
drill-ground  and  on  the  march  and  in  billets  about 
making  sure  that  he  did  not  destroy  any  property 
or  take  a  piece  of  wood  or  use  a  tool  that  did  not 


AMERICAN  MANHOOD  477 

belong  to  him,  the  orators  who  came  from  the 
United  States  to  tell  him  how  to  be  "  good  "  though 
a  soldier,  and  how  all  the  country  admired  him  and 
depended  upon  him,  were  not  so  popular  as  they 
might  have  been,  because  he  knew  the  character  of 
his  job  by  very  bitter  experience.  How  little  such 
visitors  knew  of  him — in  his  own  world ! 

As  distinguished  from  the  officers  of  commis- 
sioned rank,  we  spoke  of  the  privates  as  the  men; 
also  as  the  "  doughboys,"  a  name  which  long  ago 
the  cavalry,  looking  down  haughtily  from  their  sad- 
dles, applied  to  the  infantry,  as  kneaders  of  mud. 
There  was  a  gulf  between  officers  and  privates, 
settled  in  old  military  customs,  which  at  least  at  the 
front  grew  narrower  as  the  old  influences  were  dis- 
solved in  the  crucible  of  fire.  Many  of  the  privates 
were  superior  to  their  officers.  Many  won  their 
commissions  in  the  training-camp  of  battle.  I  pre- 
ferred always  to  think  of  the  whole  of  generals, 
colonels,  "  kid "  lieutenants,  and  privates  as  men. 
It  was  the  whole  that  was  majestic;  manhood  as 
manhood,  which  was  supreme. 

Officers,  whether  with  one  bar  or  two  stars  on 
their  shoulders,  were  only  the  nails  holding  the 
structure  of  manhood  together.  They  might  be 
promoted  and  demoted;  prune  themselves  on  their 
rank;  but  the  mighty  current  of  soldiery  was  ele- 
mental as  the  flow  of  a  river.     Never  had  the  part 


478 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


of  any  high  commander  been  relatively  less  impor- 
tant than  in  this  war;  in  no  army  was  this  so  true 
probably  as  in  ours.  By  running  through  a  list  of 
names  in  this  age  of  universal  ability,  you  might  find 
a  score  of  leaders  for  corps  or  army  who  might  be 
better  than  those  in  the  field;  but  fresh  divisions  of 
infantry  were  not  in  such  easy  call.  The  names  of 
officers  who  commanded  more  men  than  Napoleon 
or  Wellington  had  at  Waterloo,  Meade  or  Lee  at 
Gettysburg,  were  unknown  to  the  public.  Never  had 
a  single  human  being,  no  matter  how  many  orders 
on  his  breast,  appeared  more  dispensable  than  in 
this  machine  war  with  its  enormous  masses  of 
troops.  We  had  two  million  men  in  France.  Every 
officer  and  man  counted  as  one  unit  in  the  machine, 
according,  not  to  rank,  but  to  the  giving  of  all  that 
he  had  in  him.  Manhood  and  not  soldiering  was 
glorified. 

It  was  the  great  heart  of  our  men,  beating  as  the 
one  heart  of  a  great  country — simple,  vigorous, 
young,  trying  out  its  strength — on  the  background 
of  old  Europe,  which  appealed  to  me.  It  was  the 
spontaneous  incidents  of  emotion  breaking  out  of 
routine  which  revealed  character.  One  day  on  a 
path  across  the  fields  near  headquarters  town,  I 
met  a  soldier  with  a  wound  stripe  who  had  been 
invalided  back  from  the  front.  He  was  thick-set, 
bow-legged,   with   a   square,   honest  face,   and   eyes 


AMERICAN  MANHOOD  479 

slightly  walled,  and  he  was  leading  a  bow-legged 
sturdy  child  of  four  years,  whose  one  visible  eye 
showed  a  cast  resembling  the  soldier's  own.  The 
other  eye  was  hidden  by  a  drooping  wool  Tam-o'- 
Shanter  about  four  sizes  too  large  for  the  child's 
head,  while  his  wool  sweater  and  wool  leggings  were 
not  more  than  two  sizes  too  large.  It  was  evident 
that  a  man  and  not  a  woman  had  bought  his 
wardrobe,  having  in  mind  that  the  child  was  to 
be  kept  warm  at  any  cost.  The  pair  aroused  my 
interest. 

"  I  heard  all  about  adopting  French  war  orphans 
through  the  societies,"  the  soldier  said,  "  and  I  con- 
cluded, when  they  sent  me  here,  to  pick  out  my  own 
orphan.  So  I  adopted  Jake.  Yes,  I  calls  him  Jake. 
You  see,  his  father  was  killed  by  the  boche  and  his 
mother  croaked.  He  hadn't  anybody  to  look  after 
him,  so  I  took  over  the  job.     Didn't  I,  Jake?" 

Jacob  looked  up  with  an  eye  that  seemed  to  con- 
sider this  a  wonderful  world  created  by  the  soldier, 
and  removed  his  finger  from  his  mouth  long  enough 
to  say  "  Yep,"  which  he  had  learned  in  the  place  of 
"Oui." 

11  I'm  going  to  take  Jake  home  with  me,  and  make 
him  an  American,  ain't  I,  Jake?     You're  learning 
English  too,  ain't  you,  Jake?  " — with  Jake  taking  up 
his  cue  to  prove  that  he  was  by  responding  "  Yep! ' 
again. 


48o  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

When  they  started  on,  I  paused  to  look  after 
them,  with  something  catching  in  my  throat,  and  as 
the  soldier  paused  I  overheard  him  saying: 

"  I'm  going  to  take  you  home.  Don't  you  worry 
— I'm  sticking  to  that,  Jake.  The  French  regula- 
tions will  say  that  they  ain't  going  to  let  you  leave 
France  when  they're  so  short  of  kids  over  here,  and 
the  American  regulations  will  say  there  ain't  no  room 
for  kids  on  transports,  and  probably  the  censor  will 
lip  in  too — but  I'll  bring  you  after  the  war  if  I  can't 
now.  You  and  me's  fixed  up  a  life  pardnership, 
ain't  we?  You'll  make  a  hit  with  my  mother,  all 
right.  All  you've  got  to  do  is  look  up  at  her  just  the 
way  you're  looking  up  at  me  and  say  '  Yep.'  Oh, 
it'll  be  all  right  over  there — no  more  of  this  war  and 
regulation  stuff !  " 

"  Speaking  a  few  words  of  French  "  could  only 
open  a  chink  in  the  barrier  of  language  between  our 
men  and  the  French  people.  Wherever  two  Ameri- 
cans met  they  could  begin  talking  without  waiting 
on  an  interpreter.  The  common  bond  of  language 
promoted  the  family  feeling  of  the  A.  E.  F.  In  all 
their  relations  our  men  saw  with  fresh  eyes,  in  the 
light  of  foreign  surroundings,  how  like  they  were, 
not  only  in  uniform  and  equipment  and  ways  of 
thought,  but  how  distinctly  American  even  the  Eu- 
ropean born  and  the  sons  of  European  parents 
had  become.      Old   differences   disappeared   in  this 


AMERICAN  MANHOOD  481 

new  sense  of  a  fundamental  similarity.  Men  from 
the  different  parts  of  the  United  States  came  to- 
gether not  only  in  the  combat  divisions  but  around 
the  docks  and  railway  yards  and  wherever  they 
labored  in  the  Services  of  Supply.  Kansas,  Oregon, 
and  Maine  had  adjoining  beds  at  a  hospital,  while 
a  doctor  from  Pittsburgh  or  Oskaloosa,  or  a  nurse 
from  New  York  or  Cheyenne,  looked  after  them. 
Reserve  officers  who  had  been  lawyers,  merchants, 
engineers,  gang  foremen,  bakers,  bankers,  manufac- 
turers, lived  and  worked  together  in  keeping  the 
army  fed  with  shells  and  food. 

"  The  gang's  all  here, 7  was  as  expressive  of  the 
soldier's  feeling  in  the  Great  War  as  "  There'll  be 
a  hot  time  in  the  old  town  tonight "  in  the  little  war 
with  Spain.  To  all  in  whom  there  was  the  germ 
from  which  it  could  develop,  the  stern  fighting  and 
effort  brought  a  sense  of  personal  power,  quiet,  ob- 
servant, undemonstrative ;  and  their  sense  of  the  pres- 
ence there  in  France  of  two  millions  of  Americans — 
scattered  far  and  wide,  omnipresent  in  their  energy, 
welded  into  one  mighty  organization,  pulsing  with 
the  heart  of  the  home  country  three  thousand  miles 
away,  as  California  looked  Maine  in  the  eye  in  that 
common  family — brought  a  new  sense  of  national 
power.  It  occurred  to  me  that  the  A.  E.  F.  symbol- 
ized how  a  great  overgrown  boy  of  a  nation,  with 
a  puzzled  feeling  about  its  expanding  physique,  had 


482  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

suddenly  become  a  dignified,  poised,  self-respecting 
adult. 

The  men  knew  why  they  were  in  France,  even  if 
they  did  not  express  it  in  the  phrases  of  oratory  or 
propaganda.  Their  logic  was  as  cold  as  their  steel, 
as  vivid  as  gun  flashes.  They  were  in  France  to 
beat  the  Germans.  The  period  for  argument  had 
passed  for  them.  They  had  the  business  in  hand. 
Their  bitterness  toward  the  foe  was  not  as  great  as 
that  at  home.  Why  waste  words  on  him  when  you 
had  bullets  and  shells  to  fire  at  him?  He  was  taken 
for  granted  no  less  than  burglary  and  murder:  a 
positive  material  force  to  be  overcome. 

Whether  college  graduates  or  street-sweepers,  the 
privates  were  a  guild  as  exclusive  in  its  way — as  it 
always  has  been — as  a  regular  mess.  They  had 
voted  themselves  into  their  task.  It  was  the  will 
of  the  majority  of  their  country  that  we  go  to 
France.  The  majority  rules;  general  and  other  offi- 
cers may  act  as  legatees  for  the  majority.  The  thing 
was  to  "  play  the  game."  Those  who  rebelled 
found  that  there  was  nothing  else  to  do.  They  were 
in  the  machine's  grip.  "Play  the  game!'  No 
phrase  better  expressed  their  attitude  than  this.  It 
was  a  wicked,  filthy,  dangerous  game.  They  had 
signed  on  for  it;  they  would  see  it  through. 

Given  this  conviction,  and  no  soldier  will  endure 
more  hardship  than  the  American.  It  was  the  bed- 
rock of  adherence  to  that  rigid  discipline  which  in 


AMERICAN  MANHOOD  483 

our  western  democracy  surprised  Europeans.  We 
saluted  on  all  occasions — what  a  punctiliously  salut- 
ing army  we  were! — and  followed  all  the  rules  of 
etiquette  that  the  experts  said  were  necessary,  and 
learned  to  take  "  bawlings  out "  with  soldierly  phi- 
losophy. As  children  know  their  parents,  the  men 
knew  their  officers'  characters;  a  fresh  replacement 
lieutenant  was  promptly  "  sized  up,"  but  final  judg- 
ment was  reserved  until  he  had  led  them  under  fire, 
where  he  must  stand  the  real  test.  It  was  a  relief  to 
them  that  they  did  not  have  to  add  an  extra  salute 
for  every  grade  of  an  officer's  rank.  One  salute 
would  do  for  a  general  as  well  as  a  second  lieutenant. 
Generals  passed  them  on  the  road  in  cars;  generals 
inspected  them.  They  did  not  take  much  interest  in 
generals,  who  were  also  a  part  of  the  game  to  them. 
Company  and  battalion  commanders  alone  could 
make  their  personal  leadership  felt.  They  were  the 
11  heroes  "  when  they  were  good,  and  rightly  so. 

Officers  made  strange  guesses  sometimes  as  to 
what  their  men  were  thinking.  The  men  were  wiser 
than  many  officers  knew;  for  they  were  the  mass  in- 
telligence of  America.  They  understood  that  the 
Stars  and  Stripes  was  propaganda;  but  it  was  inter- 
esting. They  read  it  with  avidity.  Propaganda  was 
one  of  the  parts  of  the  mysterious,  ugly  game.  I 
have  heard  it  compared  to  the  coaching  from  the 
bleachers  at  a  league  game.  The  men  smiled  over 
the  communique's  records  of  actions  in  which  they 


484  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

participated.  Communiques  were  a  part  of  the  game, 
helping  propaganda  to  coach  from  the  side  lines.  It 
would  not  do  to  say  that  a  company  had  been  sent 
by  mistake  into  interlocking  machine-gun  fire  to  take 
a  town  which  the  survivors  had  to  yield.  When  the 
men  read  the  home  papers,  there  was  no  mention  of 
their  losses  or  their  suffering.  One  might  think  from 
the  accounts  that  they  were  enjoying  themselves  im- 
mensely, and  were  quite  comfortable  in  the  fox-holes. 
This,  too,  was  a  part  of  the  game. 

They  were  there  to  see  the  game  through.  The 
sooner  it  was  through,  the  sooner  they  would  go 
home.  Veterans  who  had  spent  one  winter  in  France 
did  not  want  to  spend  another;  those  who  had  not 
did  not  care  to  try  the  experience.  They  had  no 
more  reason  for  liking  France  than  a  man  who  sleeps 
on  the  ground  in  Central  Park  in  December,  eating 
cold  rations,  under  machine-gun  fire,  has  for  liking 
New  York  City.  "  I  want  to  get  back  to  the  cac- 
tus 1  "  as  an  Arizona  man  said.  All  were  fighting  to 
reach  home  and  be  free  men  again;  freedom  having 
a  practical  application  for  them.  The  longer  they 
were  in  France,  the  more  they  felt  that  they  were 
fighting  for  America.  As  Americans  they  were  on 
their  mettle.  Such  was  the  spirit  that  carried  them 
as  Americans  through  the  Meuse-Argonne,  which 
was  the  American  army's  battle. 


XXVIII 

THE  MILL  OF  BATTLE 

Wet  misery — "  Penetratin'er  and  penetratin'er  " — The  men  behind 
the  lines — Back  to  "  rest " — Replacements  as  bundles  of  man- 
power— Reliefs  in  the  fox-holes — Before  and  during  an  attack 
— Dodging  shells — A  struggle  to  keep  awake — And  "  on  the 
job  " — Will,  endurance,  and  drive — The  wedge  of  pressure. 

As  the  processes  of  the  Argonne  battle  became  more 
systematic,  they  became  more  horrible.  They  would 
have  been  unendurable  if  emotion  had  not  exhausted 
itself,  death  become  familiar,  and  suffering  a  com- 
monplace. The  shambles  were  at  the  worst  during 
the  driving  of  our  wedges  in  the  second  and  third 
weeks  of  October.  The  capacity  to  retain  vitality 
and  will-power  in  the  face  of  cold  and  fatigue,  and 
not  to  become  sodden  flesh  indifferent  to  what  hap- 
pened, was  even  more  important  than  courage, 
which  was  never  wanting.  The  thought  of  ever 
again  knowing  home  comforts  became  a  mirage;  a 
quiet  trench  sector,  with  its  capacious  dugouts  and 
occasional  shell-bursts,  became  a  reminiscence  of 
good  old  days.  Paradise  for  the  moment  would  be 
warmth — just  warmth — and  a  dry  board  whereon 
to  lay  one's  head  until  nature,  sleep  finished,  urged 
you  to  rise. 

485 


486  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

We  were  learning  what  our  Allies,  and  the  enemy 
too,  suffered  in  the  winter  fighting  of  Verdun  and 
the  Ypres  salient.  The  Europeans,  we  must  not  for- 
get, were  fighting  in  their  own  climate.  They  were 
used  to  having  their  oxygen  served  in  the  humidity 
of  a  clammy  sponge  pressed  close  to  their  nostrils; 
we  to  having  our  oxygen  served  in  dry  air.  We  suf- 
fered less  at  home  when  ice  covered  lakes  and 
streams  than  in  mists  and  rains  in  France  at  forty 
and  fifty  degrees.  There  is  sunshine  on  snow-drifts 
and  frosty  window-panes  in  our  northern  States  in 
midwinter,  as  well  as  on  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico;  but  we  never  saw  sunshine,  as  we  know 
sunshine,  in  the  Meuse-Argonne,  though  there  were 
days  which  the  natives  called  fair,  when  the  sun  was 
visible  as  through  a  moist  roof  of  cheese-cloth. 

"  I'd  charge  a  machine-gun  nest  single  handed,  if 
I  could  first  sit  on  a  steam  radiator  for  half  an 
hour,"  one  of  our  soldiers  said. 

It  was  summer  during  the  Chateau-Thierry  fight- 
ing; a  kindly  summer,  resembling  our  June  in  the 
northern,  or  our  April  in  the  southern  States.  The 
enthusiasm  of  our  first  important  action  gave  hard- 
ships a  certain  glamour.  Men  could  sleep  on  the 
ground  without  blankets;  the  wounded  did  not  suffer 
greatly  from  cold,  if  they  remained  out  over  night. 
Cold  rations  were  tolerable.  Clothes  and  earth  dried 
soon  after  a  rain.     Fox-holes  did  not  become  wells 


THE  MILL  OF  BATTLE  487 

on  the  levels,  and  cisterns  on  the  slopes.  Guns  and 
trucks  did  not  cut  deep  ruts  beside  the  roads  or  in 
crossing  the  fields.  Summer  was  ever  the  time  for 
war  in  temoerate  climates;  winter  the  time  of  rest. 
It  was  so  in  our  Civil  War. 

The  battlefield  was  a  sombre  brown,  splashed  by 
liquid  grays.  No  bright  colors  varied  the  monotony 
of  the  landscape  except  the  hot  flashes  from  gun- 
mouths;  there  were  none  overhead  against  the  leaden 
and  weeping  sky  except  the  red  and  blue  of  the  bull's- 
eye  of  an  aeroplane,  and  the  gossamer  sheen  of  its 
wings.  Khaki  uniforms  and  equipment,  and  the  tint 
of  trucks,  automobiles,  caissons,  and  ambulances 
were  all  in  the  protective  coloration  of  the  surround- 
ing mud.  A  horse  with  a  dappled  coat,  or  with  dark 
bay  or  black  coat,  shining  in  the  mist,  was  a  relief. 
The  sounds  were  the  grating  of  marching  hobnailed 
shoes,  the  rumble  of  motor-trucks  and  other  trans- 
port, the  roar  of  the  guns,  the  strident  gas  alarm, 
the  bursts  of  shells,  the  staccato  of  machine-guns: 
all  in  an  orchestrated  efficiency  which  wasted  not 
even  noise  in  conserving  all  energy  to  the  end  of 
destruction — if  we  except  the  song  of  marching  com- 
panies at  the  rear,  and  the  badinage  with  which  men 
diverted  one  another  and  themselves  from  their  real 
thoughts. 

There  were  the  one-way  roads  where  all  the  traffic 
was  going  in  one  direction,  either  to  or  from  the 


488  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

front,  all  day  and  all  night  in  orderly  procession. 
Along  the  roads  our  negro  laborers,  who  all  seemed 
to  be  giants,  kept  filling  in  stones  and  shoveling  in 
earth  to  mend  broken  places.  They  were  in  a  mar- 
velous world,  whose  diversions  tempted  a  holiday 
spirit.  They  rested  on  their  spades  as  they  watched 
a  general's  car,  or  a  big  gun,  or  a  tank,  or  one  of  a 
dozen  other  wonders  on  wheels  pass  by;  or,  the 
whites  of  their  eyes  showing,  looked  around  at  the 
sound  of  the  burst  of  a  shell  or  an  aviator's  bomb; 
or  aloft  at  the  balloons  and  passing  aeroplanes  and 
duels  in  the  air. 

"  How  do  you  like  this  weather?  "  I  asked  one. 

"  It's  ve'y  penetratin'  and  ve'y  cold,  seh,"  he 
replied.  "  They  say  it  keeps  on  getting  colder  and 
colder,  and  penetratin'er  and  penetratin'er,  and 
spring  nevah  comes." 

'•'  It  will  not,  if  you  don't  work  hard  and  win  the 


war." 


1  I'm  goin'  to  work  ve'y  hard.  We've  gotta  win 
this  war,  seh;  or  we'll  all  freeze  to  death — only  it's 
pow'ful  hard  keeping  yo'  mind  on  work,  seh,  when 
so  much  is  goin'  on." 

Thus  at  the  front  the  colored  man  kept  open  the 
passageway  for  the  supplies  which  the  colored  man 
had  unloaded  at  the  ports.  He  was  truly  the  Her- 
cules of  physical  labor  for  us. 

In  the  zone  of  battle,  back  of  the  infantry  and 


THE  MILL  OF  BATTLE  489 

artillery  lines,  many  men  had  many  parts,  all  under 
shell-fire  and  hardships;  the  rolling  kitchen  men,  the 
ammunition  train  and  ambulance  drivers;  the  salvage 
men  gathering  up  the  overcoats,  blankets,  rifles,  gas 
masks,  and  other  equipment  discarded  in  the  course 
of  an  attack;  and  the  much-abused  military  police- 
men, who  made  drivers  keep  their  lights  turned  off, 
and  insisted,  in  the  latter  days  of  their  high  author- 
ity, upon  colonels'  automobiles  obeying  orders,  with 
the  same  impartiality  that  policemen  at  street  cross- 
ings show  in  "  stop  "  and  "  go  "  to  the  "  flivver" 
delivery  wagon  and  the  limousine  of  the  man  who 
groans  over  the  size  of  his  income  tax. 

Out  of  the  shelled  zone  in  the  early  morning  the 
shattered  companies  of  expended  divisions  came 
marching  back  from  the  front.  Sometimes  they 
broke  into  song.  Usually  they  were  too  tired  to 
sing;  the  recollection  of  what  they  had  seen  was  too 
near  for  rollicking  gayety,  at  least.  They  were  go- 
ing into  "  rest  "  in  some  ruined  village  or  series  of 
dugouts,  or  possibly  into  a  village  that  had  not  been 
shelled;  to  be  "Y.M.C.A.'d"  and  deloused,  to 
receive  fresh  clean  clothing  and  warm  meals.  There 
were  no  beds  or  cots  for  them,  with  rare  exceptions, 
but  floors  and  lofts,  as  we  know.  Of  course,  they 
were  not  rested  in  one  day,  or  two  or  three,  or  even 
ten.  They  had  given  an  amount  of  their  store  of 
reserve   energy  which   it  would  take   them   a   long 


490  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

time  to  renew.  Drill  began  as  soon  as  they  had  had 
their  first  long  round  of  sleep.  New  officers  took 
the  place  of  the  fallen:  officers  who  often  did  not 
know  their  men  or  the  battle.  Replacements  came 
to  fill  the  gaps  in  the  ranks,  and  share  all  the  drills 
and  the  lectures  which  applied  the  latest  battle  les- 
sons.   Tired  brains  reeled  with  instruction. 

There  was  a  plan  to  return  convalescent  wounded 
to  their  original  divisions,  but  in  the  pressure  to 
hurry  all  available  man-power  forward  to  fill  the 
greedy  maw  of  the  front  it  could  be  carried  out  only 
in  a  limited  way.  Thus,  whether  convalescent  or 
newcomers,  the  replacements  might  come  from  a 
part  of  the  country  widely  separated  from  that  of 
the  division  which  they  were  joining,  and  upon  the 
division's  welcome  home  to  the  locality  of  its  origin 
by  relatives  and  friends  find  themselves  still  far  from 
their  own  homes.  Maine  was  fighting  in  the  ranks 
of  a  battalion  from  Chicago;  New  York  in  the  ranks 
of  a  battalion  from  Kansas.  The  longer  a  division 
had  fought,  the  less  regional  its  character.  The 
fortune  of  war  never  fell  more  unkindly  than  upon 
the  National  Army  divisions  which  arrived  late  in 
France  and  were  broken  up  for  replacements,  or, 
even  in  those  final  days  when  victory  beckoned  us  to 
our  utmost  endeavor,  turned  into  labor  troops  in 
the  S.  O.  S.  In  that  vital  juncture,  they  went  where 
they  were  most  needed,  which  is  a  soldier's  duty.     I 


THE  MILL  OF  BATTLE  491 

have  seen  groups  of  replacements,  who  had  had  so 
little  training  that  they  hardly  knew  how  to  use  their 
rifles,  moving  up  through  the  shelled  area  to  find  the 
battalion  in  reserve  to  which  they  were  assigned. 
Only  two  or  three  weeks  from  American  training 
camps,  shot  across  France,  strangers  indeed  on  that 
grim  field,  they  were  man-power  which  could  take 
the  place  of  the  fallen. 

In  the  late  afternoon  on  the  roads  near  the  front 
one  might  see  the  troops  of  rested  divisions  march- 
ing forward  to  relieve  expended  troops.  At  Cha- 
teau-Thierry, our  men,  I  know,  went  singing  toward 
the  line  of  shell-bursts.  I  am  told  that  many  put 
flowers  in  their  rifle  barrels  and  their  button-holes. 
No  doubt  they  did.  So  did  the  French  and  British 
in  the  early  days  of  the  war.  There  were  no  flowers 
on  the  Meuse-Argonne  field,  only  withering  grass 
and  foliage.  To  sing  was  to  attract  the  enemy's 
attention.  The  first  enthusiasm  had  passed;  our 
spring  of  war  was  over;  our  winter  of  war  had  come. 
Most  of  the  men  whom  I  watched  going  forward 
looked  as  if  they  appreciated  that  there  was  wicked, 
nasty  business  ahead,  and  they  meant  to  see  it 
through. 

It  was  dark  when  they  came  into  the  zone  where 
the  transport  had  its  dead  line.  The  length  of  their 
march  was  often  in  darkness  if  we  were  making 
concentrations  for  an  attack.     Some  went  to  their 


492  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

appointed  places  as  reserves  in  the  warrens  dug 
on  reverse  slopes;  others  in  cautious  files,  led  by 
guides  from  the  troops  in  position  who  knew  the 
ground,  went  on  until  they  came  to  the  little  pits 
where  the  outposts  were  lying,  or  to  machine-gun 
posts  which  faced  the  enemy  under  the  whipping 
of  bullets  and  the  bursts  of  shell-fire  and  gas. 
They  were  the  very  point  of  the  wedge  which  all 
the  strength  of  our  nation  was  driving.  Wet  to  the 
skin,  filthy,  hollow-eyed,  the  occupants  gave  up 
their  places  to  the  newcomers,  whose  officers  located 
their  positions  on  the  map,  and  received  local  in- 
formation from  their  predecessors  about  the  char- 
acter and  direction  of  fire  and  many  details.  It  was 
like  a  change  of  shift  in  a  factory — all  as  business- 
like as  possible. 

How  different  this  front  from  the  days  of  station- 
ary warfare,  with  the  deep  trenches  with  parapets 
of  sand-bags!  Individualism  here  returned  to  its 
own.  Patrols  must  be  sent  out  to  keep  watch  of 
the  enemy;  machine-guns  and  riflemen  must  be  ready 
for  a  counter-attack, — which  were  variations  from 
that  deadly  monotony  of  lying  in  a  wet  hole  in  the 
ground,  whether  on  a  bare  crest  or  among  the  roots 
of  trees  in  a  wood.  Blood-stains,  torn  bits  of  uni- 
form, meat  tins,  and  hard  bread  boxes  formed  the 
litter  around  the  fox-holes,  which  marked  the  stages 
of  progress  where  we  had  dug  in.     The  young  offi- 


THE  MILL  OF  BATTLE  493 

cers  had  to  creep  from  fox-hole  to  fox-hole,  keeping 
touch  with  their  platoons,  and  bearing  in  mind  all 
the  instructions,  regardless  of  exposure  to  cold  and 
fire.  The  men  must  not  forget  anything  they  were 
told.  Their  gas  masks  must  always  be  ready;  they 
must  "  stick  to  the  death  "  when  that  served  the 
purpose  of  their  superiors.  Nothing  except  war's 
demands  could  have  won  them  to  such  willing  sub- 
mission to  such  a  hideous  existence. 

If  there  were  to  be  an  attack  the  next  morning, 
then  stealthily  the  men  of  the  first  wave  came  up  to 
the  line  of  the  fox-holes  and  hugged  the  clammy 
moist  earth,  while  they  were  to  keep  their  spirits 
hot  for  their  charge.  Their  officers  had  to  study 
the  ground  over  which  they  were  to  advance ;  con- 
sider the  speed  of  the  barrage  which  they  were  to 
follow;  carry  out  amazingly  intricate  maneuvers, — 
not  knowing  what  volume  of  shell  and  machine-gun 
fire  would  meet  them  as  they  rose  to  the  charge  in 
the  chilliest  hour  of  the  day,  at  dawn,  when  the 
ground  reeked  in  slipperiness  from  the  mist.  The 
night  before  an  attack  always  had  the  same  oppres- 
sive suspense,  the  same  urgency  on  the  part  of  all 
hands  in  trying  to  be  definite  under  the  camouflage 
of  darkness — hazard  omnipotent  in  its  grip  on  every 
man's  thought. 

After  the  attack  came  the  hurry  call  for  artillery 
fire  on  points  which  had  checked  our  advance;  the 


494  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

summoning  of  reserves  to  add  more  pressure;  the 
eagerness  for  exact  reports  from  out  of  the  woods 
and  ravines  where  our  men  were  struggling;  the 
hurried  flight  of  messengers  running  the  gamut  of 
machine-gun  bullets;  the  glad  news  of  gallant  charges 
going  home;  the  sad  news  of  companies  "shot  to 
pieces  " ;  the  filtering  back  of  the  walking  wounded, 
and  the  stretcher-bearers  carrying  those  who  could 
not  walk;  prostrate  forms  waiting  on  ambulances, 
and  busy  doctors  at  the  triages;  all  so  habitual 
that  its  wonder  had  ceased  even  for  our  young 
army. 

If  you  were  wary,  studying  your  ground,  eyes 
and  ears  alert,  you  might  travel  far  in  that  region 
beyond  the  dead  line  of  transport;  or  you  might  in- 
vite a  burst  of  machine-gun  fire  at  the  outset  of 
your  journey.  When  it  came,  or  the  scream  of  a 
shell  announced  that  it  would  burst  in  close  prox- 
imity, as  you  sought  the  nearest  protection  with  an 
alacrity  that  increased  with  experience,  you  indulged 
in  that  second  of  prayer,  blasphemy,  or  fatalistic 
philosophy  which  suited  your  mood.  Some  men 
laughed  and  smiled;  I  do  not  think,  however,  that 
they  were  really  amused.  The  farther  you  went, 
the  more  deadly  the  monotony.  When  you  had  seen 
the  front  once,  you  had  seen  it  all,  in  one  sense;  in 
another,  little.  After  that,  going  under  fire  was  in 
answer  to  duty  or  the  desire  to  be  nearer  the  reali- 


THE  MILL  OF  BATTLE  495 

ties.  Every  man  was  subjective  at  intervals.  The 
less  time  he  had  to  think  of  anything  but  his  work, 
the  more  objective  he  was.  One  man  might  be 
killed  when  he  left  the  parapet  the  first  time  he 
was  under  fire;  another  might  go  through  showers 
of  missiles  again  and  again,  and  never  receive  a 
scratch.  I  have  marveled,  considering  the  number  of 
men  whom  I  have  seen  fall,  how  chance  had  favored 
me.  The  high-explosive  shell  I  always  found  the 
most  hateful  with  its  suggestion  of  maiming  for  life. 
Bullets  were  merciful.  They  meant  death,  or  a 
wound  from  which,  except  in  rare  cases,  you  would 
recover.  Fighting  in  the  open  as  our  men  did  in 
the  Meuse-Argonne,  all  their  bodies  exposed  to 
machine-gun  nests,  the  percentage  of  dead  was  often 
only  one  in  six  or  seven,  and  in  some  cases  only  one 
in  ten,  to  the  wounded.  In  the  Ypres  salient,  con- 
spicuously, and  elsewhere  in  the  old  days  of  trench 
warfare,  when  only  heads  were  exposed  above  the 
parapet,  and  shells  mashed  in  dugouts  and  struck  in 
groups  of  men,  the  percentage  was  one  in  three,  and 
even  one  in  two. 

Those  who  saw  our  returned  veterans  parading 
in  clean  uniforms  have  little  idea  of  their  appearance 
in  battle,  their  clothes  matted  with  mud,  their  faces 
grey  as  the  shell-gashed  earth  from  exhaustion,  when 
they  had  given  the  last  ounce  of  their  strength 
against  the  enemy.     This  picture  of  them  makes  a 


496  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

march  over  pavements,  between  banks  of  people  re- 
warding them  with  cheers  for  what  they  had  endured, 
seem  exotic  pageantry.  No  one  can  know  except  by 
feeling  it  the  physical  and  mental  fatigue  of  this 
siege  battle.  There  was  always  the  contrast  of  effort 
at  high  nervous  pitch  and  the  utter  relaxation  of 
moments  of  inaction.  Memories  of  weary  men 
prone  on  the  earth,  or  lying  on  caissons  or  gun 
limbers,  go  hand  in'  hand  with  memories  of  our 
bursts  of  '  speed  "  when  orders  summoned  weari- 
ness to  another  impulse  of  effort.  Nature  compelled 
sleep  at  times,  even  in  the  cold;  and  men  awoke  to 
find  that  they  had  pneumonia  or  "  flu."  It  was  not 
only  the  wounded,  but  the  sick,  who  were  dripping, 
painfully  hobbling  shadows  along  the  muddy  roads. 
The  medical  corps  accomplished  a  wonder  I  do  not 
understand  in  the  low  percentage  of  mortality. 

The  battle  was  a  treadmill.  If  there  were  men  of 
faint  hearts  or  dazed  by  fatigue,  they  had  to  keep  on 
going.  The  number  with  an  inclination  to  straggle 
was  infinitely  fewer  than  in  the  Civil  War.  Not  only 
battle  police  but  something  stronger  held  them  in 
their  places  in  the  machine  :  public  opinion.  We  were 
all  in  it;  we  must  all  do  our  share.  The  spirit  of  the 
draft  was  applied  by  the  common  feeling.  A  sol- 
dier who  might  sham  illness  or  shell-shock — which 
was  rare  indeed — if  his  malingering  were  not  un- 
derstood at  a  glance,  must  pass  the  test  of  a  search- 


THE  MILL  OF  BATTLE  497 

ing  diagnosis.    I  have  in  mind  such  a  case,  of  a  sol- 
dier who  came  into  a  triage. 

"Well,  what's  the  matter  with  you?"  asked  the 
medico,  looking  at  him  in  gimlet  intensity  as  their 
eyes  met. 

"  Nothing,  except  tired,  I  guess.  I'm  feeling  bet- 
ter.   I'm  going  back  to  the  front,"  was  the  reply. 

The  wonder  is  that  there  were  not  more  men  who 
succumbed,  not  to  fear  or  fire  but  to  the  strain. 
There  were  instances  of  insanity,  of  temporary  illu- 
sion, of  mind  losing  control  over  body — shell-shock, 
or  whatever  you  choose  to  call  it — which  sent  a  sol- 
dier back  through  sifting  processes  for  specific 
treatment;  but  no  soldier  well  enough  to  fight  might 
escape  his  duty.  Never,  I  repeat,  were  there  so 
few  who  had  any  such  thought;  and  this  under  con- 
ditions worse  than  Valley  Forge.  Where  heroes 
of  that  day  only  knew  want  and  cold  in  camp,  they 
did  not  have  to  fight  at  the  same  time.  The  lack 
of  warm  food  was  alone  enough  to  weaken  initiative 
in  men  used  to  comforts  and  to  being  well  fed.  We 
tried  to  force  the  rolling  kitchens  up  to  the  front, 
but  it  was  impossible  on  many  occasions.  Division 
staffs  might  say  they  were  up — and  they  were,  in 
some  parts  of  the  line,  but  not  in  all.  The  men 
growled,  of  course.  They  had  a  right  to  growl. 
They  growled  about  many  things.  The  lack  of  ar- 
tillery fire,  the  failure  of  our  planes  to  stop  enemy 


498  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

planes  from  flying  low  with  bursts  of  machine-guns, 
orders  that  made  them  march  and  counter-march 
without  apparent  reason.  They  growled,  but  they 
kept  on  the  job. 

I  always  think  of  three  words  to  characterize 
the  battle.  Will,  endurance,  and  drive :  the  will  to 
win,  the  endurance  which  could  bear  the  misery  neces- 
sary to  win,  and  the  drive  which  by  repeated  at- 
tacks would  break  the  enemy's  will.  It  was  the  old 
accepted  system;  but  its  application  is  the  test  of 
the  soldier  in  every  cell  of  brain  and  body.  The 
high  command  could  supply  the  orders,  but  the  men 
must  supply  the  qualities  which  could  carry  out  the 
orders. 

"  It's  drive,  drive,  drive !  "  as  one  of  the  soldiers 
said.  "  All  the  way  down  from  Washington,  through 
Pershing,  to  the  lieutenants,  to  us — and  there's  no- 
body for  us  to  drive  except  the  Boche  " — an  enemy 
who  was  a  mighty  soldier.  We  tried  our  steel 
against  no  inferior  metal.  To  say  otherwise  is  not 
to  allow  just  tribute  to  ourselves. 

All  our  national  energy,  our  pride,  came  to  a  head 
in  the  fields  of  the  Argonne.  We  can  be  ruthless 
with  ourselves  and  with  one  another.  We  consumed 
man-power  like  wood  in  a  furnace.  Some  men  and 
divisions  gave  their  all  in  the  first  period  of  the 
battle;  others  in  a  later  period;  others  in  the  final 
period.    The  thing  was  to  give  your  all.    For  officers 


THE  MILL  OF  BATTLE  499 

there  was  always  the  fear  of  Blois;  of  being  sent  to 
the  rear.  I  know  of  an  officer  who  staggered  at  the 
door  of  division  headquarters;  and  then  stiffened  and 
drew  in  his  chin  as  he  entered. 

"  How  are  you?  "  asked  his  division  chief  of  staff. 

"  All  right.     Never  felt  better." 

Then  his  hand  went  out  to  the  wall  to  keep  him 
from  falling.  This  was  the  right  spirit.  Yet  he 
must  have  rest.  He  could  no  longer  command  three 
thousand  men. 

One  day  an  officer  might  seem  fully  master  of 
himself  and  his  task;  the  next  day  he  "  cracked." 
Superiors,  breaking  under  the  strain,  were  unjust  to 
subordinates  who  could  not  carry  out  orders  to  take 
a  series  of  machine-gun  nests.  Personal  fortunes 
were  subject  to  the  "  break  in  luck." 

Favoring  circumstances  honored  officers  who  per- 
haps had  not  done  as  well  as  those  who  were  con- 
sidered to  have  failed.  Success  was  success;  failure 
was  failure.    Time  was  precious. 

"  Finding  that  X —  was  not  close  enough  up  to 
his  battalion,  I  immediately  relieved  him,"  was  the 
matter-of-fact  report  of  a  colonel  on  a  major,  which 
meant  tragedy  to  the  major;  the  next  day  the 
colonel  himself  might  "  crack."  The  young  lieu- 
tenants of  platoons  and  companies,  burdened  with 
their  instructions  and  maps,  were  the  object  of  the 
accumulated   pressure    from   senior  officers.      They 


5oo 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


could  always  charge.  There  was  one  sufficing 
answer  to  criticism — death.  It  came  to  many 
against  impossible  positions :  yet  not  in  vain.  Every 
man  who  dared  machine-gun  fire  added  to  the 
enemy's  conviction  of  our  determination  to  keep  on 
driving  until  we  had  "  gone  through." 


XXIX 

THEY  ALSO  SERVED 

From  tambourine  to  doughnut — The  "  Y  "  and  the  canteen — Too 
much  on  its  hands — Other  ministrants — Manifold  activity  of 
the  Red  Cross — But  not  at  the  front — Honor  to  the  army  nurses 
— The  chaplain's  label  immaterial. 

Of  the  auxiliary  organizations  serving  with  the  army 
the  Salvation  Army  was  nearest  to  the  soldier's 
heart,  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  or  the  "  Y,"  as  the 
soldiers  knew  it,  the  most  in  evidence.  When  the 
pioneer  Salvationists  appeared  in  our  training  camps 
early  in  the  winter  of  19 17- 191 8,  some  wits  asked 
if  they  were  to  beat  the  tambourine  and  hold  expe- 
rience meetings  in  the  trenches.  Soon  they  were 
winning  their  way  by  their  smiling  humility.  They 
were  not  bothered  by  relative  rank,  which  gave  some 
of  the  personnel  of  the  other  auxiliaries  much 
concern. 

"  If  there's  anything  that  anybody  else  is  too  busy 
to  do,  won't  you  let  us  try  to  do  it?  "  seemed  to  ex- 
press their  attitude. 

After  the  fighting  began,  it  was  evident  that  on 
campaign  their  emblem  was  not  the  tambourine  but 
the  doughnut.    When  our  soldiers  came  out  of  the 

501 


502  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

battle,  whom  should  they  see  standing  in  the  mud 
of  the  shelled  zone  but  the  khaki-clad  Salvation 
lassies,  smilingly  passing  out  doughnuts  and  hot 
coffee — free.  The  tired  fighter  did  not  have  to 
search  his  pockets  for  money.  All  he  had  to  do  was 
to  eat  the  doughnuts,  and  drink  the  coffee.  That 
made  a  "  hit "  with  him. 

The  men  workers  of  other  auxiliaries  went  up 
under  fire,  and  distributed  chocolate  and  cigarettes. 
Yet  nothing  in  their  gallantry  or  devotion  could  have 
the  appeal  of  the  smiling  lassies  offering  free  dough- 
nuts and  hot  coffee  to  a  man  just  out  of  the  shambles, 
when  his  emotions  were  gelatine  to  the  impressions 
that  would  endure.  The  Salvationists  were  ready 
night  and  day  to  bear  hardships  and  do  cheerfully 
any  kind  of  drudgery.  There  were  relatively  few 
of  them;  they  filled  in  gaps,  depending  upon  the  per- 
sonal human  touch,  which  they  exerted  with  ad- 
mirable "  tactics,"  as  the  map  experts  of  the  staff 
would  say. 

Possibly  the  soldier  was  a  little  unfair  to  the 
"Y";  possibly,  too,  the  "Y"  was  the  object  of 
critical  propaganda,  while  it  neglected  propaganda 
on  its  own  account  among  our  soldiers,  though  not 
at  home.  Where  nothing  was  expected  of  the  Salva- 
tion Army,  everything  was  expected  of  the  "  Y."  It 
must  have  motion  pictures,  singers,  and  vaudeville 
artists,  and  huts  wherever  American  soldiers  congre- 


THEY  ALSO  SERVED  503 

gated  from  end  to  end  of  France;  this  was  a  part 
of  the  ambitious  plan,  although  it  could  not  get  the 
tonnage  allowance  from  home,  or  the  supplies  in 
France,  to  carry  it  out.  Another  part  was  that  of 
really  taking  the  place  of  a  company  exchange.  Here 
the  "  Y  "  put  its  head  in  a  noose ;  but  not  unwittingly. 
When  the  proposition  came  from  the  army  to  the 
"  Y,"  its  answer  was  in  the  negative. 

"Aren't  you  here  to  serve?"  was  the  army's 
question.  To  this  the  "  Y  "  could  only  say,  "  Yes, 
sir."  At  that  time  the  army  authorities — not  fore- 
seeing conditions  which  later  developed — were  ap- 
plying the  theory  that  gifts  to  the  soldiers  meant 
charity:  as  a  self-respecting  man  he  would  want  to 
pay  for  his  tobacco,  candy,  or  other  luxuries. 

The  "  Y  "  had  no  such  generous  fund  as  the  Red 
Cross;  it  could  not  build  huts  and  theaters,  sell  cig- 
arettes, chocolate,  sandwiches,  pie,  or  furnish  meals 
below  cost.  In  the  early  days  when  our  soldiers 
were  hungry  for  chocolate,  and  none  was  arriving 
from  home,  the  "  Y  "  bought  it  at  exorbitant  prices 
in  the  local  market,  charging  what  it  had  paid.  Later 
it  had  supplies  from  the  quartermaster.  As  soon  as 
a  soldier  appeared  in  a  town,  he  asked,  "  Where  is 
that  blankety-blank  '  Y  '  ?  "  If  there  were  no  "  Y  " 
hut,  canteen,  or  motion  picture  show,  his  conclusions 
were  inevitable,  and  his  remarks  sometimes  unprint- 
able, especially  if  he  could  not  buy  his  home  brand 


504  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

of  cigarettes.  It  was  the  "  Y's  "  business  to  be  on 
hand,  no  less  than  that  of  the  quartermaster 
department  to  see  that  he  was  given  his  daily 
rations. 

He  did  not  receive  his  pay  more  regularly  than 
his  mail.  If  he  had  no  money,  though  he  might  go 
to  the  "  Y  "  motion  picture  show,  he  could  not  get 
cigarettes,  chewing  gum,  or  pie.  On  one  occasion 
when  a  "  Y  "  truck  loaded  with  cigarettes  came  to 
the  rescue  of  the  tobacco-famished  at  the  front,  the 
besieging  purchasers,  when  they  opened  the  pack- 
ages, found  a  slip  inside,  saying  that  they  were  from 
a  newspaper's  free  tobacco  fund.  The  fat  was  in 
the  fire.  The  "  Y  "  might  give  away  all  that  truck 
load  of  cigarettes  as  it  did,  return  the  money  of  the 
deceived  purchasers,  and  it  might  give  away  a  dozen 
trucks  of  sales  cigarettes;  but  the  explanation  that 
the  quartermaster  department  had  mixed  the  free 
cigarettes  with  sales  cigarettes,  the  "  Y  "  being  offi- 
cially credited  for  payment  for  all,  could  never  over- 
take the  circumstantial  report  of  the  "  Y's " 
profiteering,  which  grew  as  it  was  helped  on  its 
travels,  perhaps,  by  the  "  Y's  "  enemies. 

If  a  division  commander  wanted  an  errand  done 
in  Paris,  a  check  cashed,  or  any  comfort  or  enter- 
tainment for  his  men,  he  called  on  the  "  Y,"  which 
was  not  "  volunteer,"  but  "  drafted."  No  one 
ever  stopped  to  think  what  the  army  would  have 


THEY  ALSO  SERVED  505 

done  without  the  "  Y  "  huts,  motion  pictures,  theat- 
ricals, and  canteens. 

After  the  armistice,  when  a  large  number  of  re- 
turned British  and  American  prisoners  arrived  at 
Nancy,  I  recollect  how  the  local  head  of  another 
auxiliary  organization  called  up  the  "  Y  "  on  the 
telephone,  saying:  "We're  helpless.  Can  you  do 
anything?  " 

"  Send  them  on!  "  was  the  answer. 

"  There  are  eight  hundred,  all  hungry.  Have  you 
food  for  them?" 

"  No,  but  we'll  find  it — "  which  was  the  spirit  of 
the  S.  O.  S.  that  kept  us  supplied  in  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  battle.  Another  type  of  "  Y "  man 
might,  however,  have  thrown  up  his  hands  in 
despair. 

The  "  Y  !  was  an  enormous  and  mixed  force, 
criticized,  reasonably  I  think,  for  lack  of  organiza- 
tion to  keep  pace  with  its  ambitions.  Its  home  ad- 
ministration seemed  disinclined  to  take  the  advice  of 
men  experienced  at  the  front  in  the  choice  of  per- 
sonnel. A  novelist,  a  college  professor,  a  lawyer, 
or  even  a  regular  "  Y  "  secretary  is  not  as  good  at 
running  a  lunch  counter  or  a  hut  as  a  man  who  regu- 
larly runs  a  lunch  counter  or  a  hotel.  A  young 
woman  who  stood  high  at  college  might  not  be  as 
useful  in  the  kind  of  work  the  "  Y  "  had  to  do  as 
a  practical  housewife  who  might  not  have  heard  of 


506 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


Euclid,  but  who  did  know  how  to  bake,  sew,  and 
cook.  The  soldier  judged  personnel  by  the  way  they 
came  down  to  earth,  as  he  had  a  very  earthly  job 
in  his  fox-holes  and  charges.  I  have  gone  into  this 
detail  because  it  became  the  fashion  to  give  the  "  Y  " 
a  bad  name,  which  was  hardly  deserved  considering 
the  large  contract  it  had  undertaken  to  fill. 

The  Knights  of  Columbus  also  had  huts  and  thea- 
ters, but  did  not  attempt  to  cover  the  whole  field. 
When  K.  of  C.  workers  opened  a  counter  or  ap- 
peared with  a  truck  at  the  front,  the  supplies  while 
they  lasted  were  free  to  all  comers.  The  soldier 
who  had  no  change  was  always  looking  for  the 
K.  of  C.  When  he  passed  the  "  Y,"  which  required 
money  for  the  sweets  or  the  tobacco  he  craved,  the 
contrast  in  his  mind  was  that  between  generosity  and 
commercialism.  He  was  allotting  a  large  portion 
of  his  pay  to  his  family  in  a  time  of  war,  when 
according  to  all  he  read  everybody  at  home  was 
subscribing  liberally  in  order  that  the  men  who  faced 
hardship  and  death  might  not  go  without  comforts. 
As  the  K.  of  C.  appeared  in  force  with  the  army 
later  than  the  "  Y  "  and  could  profit  by  example, 
its  workers  were  seemingly  a  little  more  practical 
than  those  of  the  "  Y." 

"  Boys,  we'll  give  you  all  we  have.  Never  mind 
the  money!  "  was  their  attitude.  The  Jewish  Wel- 
fare  Board   seems  to   have  been   admirably   fore- 


THEY  ALSO  SERVED  507 

handed  and  generous  in  its  special  attention  to  the 
soldiers  of  the  Jewish  race. 

We  must  not  overlook  the  American  Library  As- 
sociation, which  had  a  free  library  in  Paris.  It  cir- 
culated books  throughout  the  army  zone  by  a  system 
which  enabled  the  reader,  if  he  were  traveling,  to 
return  a  book  to  any  "  Y  "  hut.  If  a  book  were 
lost,  no  matter.  The  thing  was  that  our  fighters 
should  be  served. 

The  Red  Cross,  having  elaborate  headquarters  in 
Paris,  was  an  enormous  organization,  managed  with 
able  statecraft,  which  covered  a  broad  field  of  various 
activity.  Its  duties  with  the  army  never  seemed  as 
specific  as  those  of  the  other  auxiliaries.  The  old 
established  Samaritan  of  our  modern  world,  with 
immense  funds  and  resources  ready  to  meet  any 
emergency  when  the  call  came,  it  opened  free  dis- 
pensaries and  succored  refugees;  assisted  civil  pop- 
ulations as  well  as  soldiers;  ran  some  auxiliary  hos- 
pitals, convalescent  hotels,  and  hotels  for  officers; 
never  selling,  always  giving,  supplied  hot  coffee  and 
lunches  to  soldiers  en  route  across  France;  and 
'  filled  in  "  on  a  huge  scale  in  the  same  way  as  the 
Salvation  Army  on  a  smaller  scale.  More  of  its 
workers  were  well-to-do  and  unpaid  than  in  the  K. 
of  C.  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  Some  of  these — for  the 
A.  R.  C,  too,  had  its  difficulties  with  personnel — 
were  far  more  expensive,  the  practical  comrades  said, 


508  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

than  if  they  had  received  large  salaries.  The  Red 
Cross  doctors  and  nurses  were  ready  to  supplement 
the  regular  army  forces  when  occasion  demanded. 

The  popular  idea  that  the  Red  Cross  had  anything 
to  do  with  bringing  in  the  wounded  from  the  field, 
or  with  the  dressing  stations  or  ambulances,  was  quite 
erroneous.  All  the  doctors  and  medical  men  in  the 
front  line,  and  all  the  stretcher-bearers  who  endured 
their  share  of  gas,  shells,  and  machine-gun  blasts, 
of  rains  and  mud,  with  heavy  casualties;  all  the 
drivers  of  the  ambulances  along  shell-infested  roads; 
all  the  hospital  corps  men,  on  their  feet  twenty- 
four  hours  at  a  stretch  at  the  triages;  all  the  teams 
of  surgeons  and  their  helpers,  whose  skill  and  tire- 
less endurance  saved  lives — these  were  of  the  army. 

There  is  no  heroism  finer  than  that  of  the  stretcher- 
bearer;  or  of  the  surgeon  and  medical  corps  man 
in  the  front  line.  Their  blood  is  not  hot  in  pursuit 
or  combat.  They  see  the  red  bandages  and  gaping 
wounds,  and  hear  the  gasps  for  breath  of  the  dying. 
Your  medical  corps  man  "  took  on  for  the  war"; 
he  was  of  the  army  machine.  The  work  of  our 
doctors  is  attested  by  the  record  of  how  successfully 
they  patched  up  the  wounded  to  return  to  the  battle ; 
of  how  they  kept  the  stream  of  wounded  flowing 
back  to  the  hospitals  in  amazing  smoothness,  con- 
sidering the  unexpected  demands  of  the  battle. 

There  were  not  enough  medical  officers,  hospital 


THEY  ALSO  SERVED  509 

corps  men,  or  nurses;  but  they  made  up  for  their 
lack  of  numbers  under  the  most  appealing  of  calls 
by  giving  the  limit  of  their  strength,  no  less  than 
the  soldiers.  The  honors  to  the  womanhood  which 
served  in  France  go  to  our  trained  nurses  in  the 
army  service.  They  did  not  report  to  a  Paris  head- 
quarters when  they  arrived  from  home,  but  were 
hurried  to  their  destinations  on  army  travel  orders; 
they  knew  none  of  the  diversions  of  working  in  can- 
teens or  of  automobile  rides  about  the  front.  For 
weeks  on  end  they  were  restricted  to  hospital  areas; 
they  were  soldiers  under  army  discipline,  in  every 
sense  of  the  word.  They  had  not  only  kindness  in 
their  hearts,  but  they  knew  how  to  be  kind;  they 
not  only  wanted  to  do,  but  knew  how  to  do. 

How  their  competency  shone  beside  the  frittering 
superficiality  of  volunteers  who  had  not  even  been 
taught  by  their  mothers  to  sew,  or  cook,  or  look  mis- 
ery in  any  form  in  the  face,  but  who  felt  that  they 
must  reach  France  in  some  way  in  order  to  help,  or 
rather  to  be  helped!  It  was  the  difference  between 
the  sturdy  workhorse  drawing  a  load  upgrade,  and 
a  rosette  of  ribbons  on  the  bridle;  between  the  cloth 
that  keeps  out  the  cold,  and  the  flounce  on  the  skirt; 
between  knowing  how  to  bathe  a  sick  man,  put  a 
fresh  bandage  on  his  wound,  move  him  gently,  and 
what  to  say  to  cheer  him:  and  knowing  how  to  take 
a  chocolate  out  of  a  box  daintily.     There  was  no 


5io  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

time  for  ribbons  or  flounces  during  our  greatest 
battle.  We  rarely  had  candy  from  the  commissary, 
which  fact  however  did  require  self-abnegation  on 
the  part  of  a  few  of  the  least  serviceable  of  auxiliary 
workers,  which  might  lead  them  to  think  that  they 
were  doing  their  bit. 

Hollow-eyed  nurses,  driving  into  bodies  aching 
with  fatigue  no  less  energy  of  will  than  the  exhausted 
battalions  in  their  charges,  kept  the  faith  with  smiles, 
which  were  their  camouflage  for  cheeks  pale  from 
want  of  sleep.  They  often  worked  double  the  time 
that  they  would  in  hospitals  at  home,  where  they 
had  their  home  comforts  and  diversions.  When  a 
soldier,  with  drawn,  ashen  face  from  loss  of  blood, 
reeking  still  with  the  grime  of  the  battlefield,  came 
into  a  ward,  an  American  woman,  who  knew  his 
ways  and  his  tongue,  was  waiting  to  attend  upon 
such  cases  as  his.  When  he  was  bathed  and  shaved 
and  his  wound  dressed,  and  he  lay  back  glowing  in 
cleanliness  on  his  cot,  his  gratitude  gave  the  nurse 
renewed  strength. 

After  I  had  returned  home,  I  heard  one  day  on 
an  elevated  train  a  young  woman  telling,  in  radiant 
importance,  of  her  "  wonderful  experience  "  as  an 
auxiliary  worker  of  the  type  to  which  I  have  re- 
ferred, and  of  all  the  officers  she  had  met.  Seated 
near  her  were  two  nurses  in  uniform,  furtively 
watching  her  between  glances  at  each  other.    There 


THEY  ALSO  SERVED  511 

were  lines  in  their  faces,  though  not  in  hers — lines 
left  by  their  service.  What  she  was  saying  went 
very  well  with  her  friends,  but  not  with  us  who  know 
something  of  who  won  the  war  in  France.  Many 
of  these  nurses — working  double  shifts  in  a  calling 
which  is  short-lived  for  those  who  pursue  it  for  any 
length  of  time — will  not  recover  from  the  strain  on 
mind  and  body  of  the  generous  giving  of  the  only 
capital  that  most  of  them  had.  If  you  were  not  in 
France — in  case  you  were  and  were  wounded,  you 
need  no  reminder — when  you  meet  a  woman  who 
was  in  France,  ask  if  she  were  an  army  nurse.  If 
she  says  that  she  was,  then  you  may  have  met  a  per- 
son who  deserves  to  outrank  some  gentlemen  I  know 
who  have  stars  on  their  shoulders. 

Then  there  were  the  chaplains.  General  Pershing 
had  his  own  ideas  on  the  subject.  The  chaplain  was 
simply  to  be  the  man  of  God,  the  ministrant  of  re- 
ligion, the  moral  companion  without  regard  to  theo- 
logical faith,  who  might  show,  under  fire,  his  greater 
faith  in  the  souls  of  men  fighting  for  a  cause. 

Bishop  Brent,  the  chief  chaplain,  was  not  a  mili- 
tant churchman,  but  a  man  of  the  gospel  militant; 
and  so  was  Father  Doherty,  on  his  right  hand, 
and  all  the  other  chiefs.  You  ceased  to  ask  whether 
a  man  was  Catholic  or  Protestant,  Baptist  or  Metho- 
dist, Christian  or  Jewish.  Clergymen  at  home  might 
wonder  about  this,  but  they  would  not  after  they 


5I2 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


had  served  for  a  while  as  our  chaplains  served,  close 
to  the  blood-stained  gas-saturated  earth,  with  the 
eternal  mystery  of  the  sky  overhead.  The  chief 
chaplains  were  hard  disciplinarians.  The  punish- 
ment which  they  meted  out  to  one  chaplain  who 
strayed  from  the  straight  and  narrow  path  was  not 
comprised  in  army  regulations.  "  Wasn't  he  a 
chaplain?"  the  chaplains  argued.  Hardest  of  all 
on  him  were  the  men  of  his  own  church.  He  had 
disgraced  his  church  as  well  as  his  fellows. 

Yet  despite  the  chaplains  the  men  developed  the 
habit  of  swearing;  soldiers  always  have.  War  re- 
quires emphatic  expressions.  It  destroys  flexibility 
of  expression — and  "  damn  "  and  "  hell  "  do  seem 
the  fittest  description  of  a  soldier's  occupation. 

"  It's  an  innocent  kind  of  swearing,  though,"  said 
a  chaplain.  "  It  does  not  really  blaspheme.  It  may 
help  them  in  fighting  the  battle  of  the  Lord  against 
the  German." 

In  the  assignment  of  chaplains,  of  course,  the  plan 
was  to  place  a  Catholic  with  a  regiment  which  was 
preponderantly  Catholic;  a  Protestant  with  a  regi- 
ment that  was  preponderantly  Protestant;  a  rabbi 
with  a  regiment  that  had  many  Jews.  When  it 
was  reported  that  the  majority  of  the  men  of  a  cer- 
tain regiment  were  not  of  the  same  church  as  their 
chaplain,  a  transfer  was  recommended.  The  colonel 
wanted  to  keep   his   chaplain,   and  suggested  that 


THEY  ALSO  SERVED  513 

he  put  the  question  to  a  vote,  which  he  did:  with 
the  result  that  all  the  men  of  the  regiment  declared 
themselves  of  the  same  faith  as  their  chaplain.  This 
chaplain's  religion,  as  it  worked  out  in  the  daily  as- 
sociation of  the  drudgery  of  drill  and  the  savage 
ruck  of  battle,  was  quite  good  enough  for  them, 
without  regard  to  the  theological  label  he  bore.  He 
had  faith,  simply  faith,  and  he  gave  them  faith 
through  his  own  work. 

Division  commanders  who  were  not  religious  men, 
but  hard-hitting  fighters,  thinking  only  of  battle  ef- 
ficiency, used  always  to  be  asking  for  more  chap- 
lains. I  recollect  during  the  Meuse-Argonne  battle 
a  division  commander  exclaiming:  "Why  don't  we 
get  more  chaplain  replacements?  I'm  right  up 
against  it  in  my  division.  I've  had  one  killed  and  one 
wounded  in  the  last  two  days.  I'm  going  to  recom- 
mend both  for  the  Cross,  but  there's  nobody  come 
to  take  their  places.  You  stir  them  up  on  this  ques- 
tion at  Headquarters." 

The  chaplain  stoutened  the  hearts  of  the  fighters 
against  hardship,  cheered  the  wounded,  administered 
to  the  dying,  wrote  letters  home  to  relatives,  went 
over  the  fields  after  the  battle  with  the  men  of  the 
Graves  Registration  Service,  which  had  the  pitiful 
and  reverent  task  of  gathering  and  burying  the  dead. 

Our  soldiers  who  knew  religion  at  home  as  re- 
peating "  Now  I  lay  me  down  "  in  childhood  and 


5H 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


the  Lord's  Prayer  when  they  were  older,  as  grace 
before  meals,  going  to  Sunday  school,  sitting  in  pews 
listening  to  sermons,  and  as  calls  from  the  clergy- 
man, now  knew  it  as  the  infinite  in  their  souls  in 
face  of  death,  exemplified  by  the  man  of  God  who 
was  wearing  the  uniform  they  wore,  who  was  suffer- 
ing what  they  suffered,  who  kept  faith  with  the  old 
thought  that  "  the  blood  of  the  martyr  is  the  seed 
of  the  church." 


XXX 

THROUGH  THE  KRIEMHILDE 

No  thought  of  peace  at  Souilly — The  third  attack — The  Rainbow 
Division  before  Chatillon  ridge — Three  days  of  confused  com- 
bat— Over  the  ridge — The  Arrows  sweep  through  Romagne — 
Outflanking  the  Dame  Marie  ridge — The  new  Ace  of  Dia- 
monds Division — In  and  out — A  corridor  of  fire — Knitting 
through  the  Pultiere  Wood — A  fumble  in  the  Rappes  Wood — 
Which  is  finally  "  riveted  " — The  long-enduring  Marne  Divi- 
sion— Knits  further  progress. 

On  the  late  afternoon  of  October  13th  I  happened 
to  be  in  the  stuffy  little  ante-room  at  Souilly,  when, 
his  great  figure  filling  the  doorway,  Liggett  came 
out  from  a  conference  with  Pershing.  His  face  was 
glowing,  his  eyes  were  sparkling  as  if  he  had  seen  a 
vision  come  true.  We  were  planning  to  have  four 
million  men  in  France  in  the  summer  of  19 19.  Its 
new  commander  might  think  of  his  First  Army, 
after  three  weeks  of  battle  in  the  Meuse-Argonne, 
as  only  the  nucleus  of  our  growing  strength. 

A  few  minutes  after  he  had  left  the  ante-room 
General  Pershing's  aide  received  an  item  of  news 
over  the  telephone  from  Paris.  This  announced  that 
the  Germans  had  provisionally  accepted  President 
Wilson's  Fourteen  Points.     Thought  turned  from 

5*5 


516" 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


our  own  to  other  battlefields.  Austria  had  prac- 
tically thrown  up  her  hands.  Turkey  was  isolated 
and  demoralized.  Bulgaria  had  surrendered;  the 
Serbs  and  Allied  troops  were  marching  to  Belgrade; 
the  Belgians  were  at  the  gates  of  Bruges,  the  British 
four  days  later  were  to  enter  Lille,  and  the  French 
had  taken  Laon  in  the  sweep  across  the  open  coun- 
try. Was  the  end  in  sight?  So  long  and  so  stub- 
bornly had  the  German  armies  held  out,  so  habitual 
had  war  became,  that  we  who  were  close  to  the  front 
saw  vaguely  as  yet  the  handwriting  on  the  wall  which 
was  so  distinct  to  the  German  command.  We  knew 
that  the  Germans  had  many  times  dallied  with  peace 
proposals  in  the  hope  of  weakening  Allied  morale. 
When  I  went  in  to  see  General  Pershing,  he 
turned  to  his  big  map  on  the  wall,  and  ran  his  finger 
over  the  Romagne  positions.  "  Liggett  is  losing  no 
time.  He's  attacking  tomorrow,"  he  said.  After 
he  had  referred  to  the  plan,  he  fell  to  talking  of  the 
young  reserve  officers,  their  courage,  the  rapidity 
with  which  they  had  learned  their  lessons,  of  the 
fortitude  and  initiative  of  the  men,  who  produced 
leaders  among  themselves  when  their  officers  fell  in 
action.  He  had  had  to  drive  them  very  hard;  this 
was  the  only  way  to  hasten  the  end  of  the  war.  His 
voice  trembled  and  his  eyes  grew  moist  as  he  dwelt 
on  the  sacrifice  of  life.  For  the  moment  he  was  not 
a  commander  under  control  of  an  iron  purpose,  but 


THROUGH  THE  KRIEMHILDE      517 

an  individual  allowing  himself  an  individual's  emo- 
tion. Then  his  aide  came  in  and  laid  a  little  slip 
of  paper  on  his  desk,  remarking  that  it  contained  the 
news  of  the  German  acceptance.  I  asked  the  general 
what  he  thought  of  the  chance  of  peace. 

"  I  know  nothing  about  it,"  he  said.  "  Our  busi- 
ness is  to  go  on  fighting  until  I  receive  orders  to 
cease  fire.  We  must  have  no  other  thought,  as 
soldiers." 

The  only  negotiations  in  his  province  and  in  that 
of  the  Allied  armies  were  of  the  kind  they  had  been 
using  for  four  years :  the  kind  which  had  brought  the 
Germans  to  their  present  state  of  mind.  The  pros- 
pect of  peace  should  make  us  fight  all  the  harder, 
as  a  further  argument  for  the  enemy  to  yield  speed- 
ily. Not  until  the  day  of  the  armistice  did  our  prep- 
arations diminish,  at  home  or  in  France,  for  carry- 
ing on  the  war  on  an  increasing  scale  of  force. 
Throughout  October  and  the  first  ten  days  of 
November  our  cablegrams  to  Washington  continued 
to  call  for  all  the  material  required  for  four  million 
men  in  the  summer  of  19 19.  Indiscreet  as  it  would 
have  been  to  encourage  the  enemy  by  confessing  to 
our  paucity  of  numbers  and  lack  of  material  in  the 
summer  of  19 17,  we  might  lay  all  our  cards  on  the 
table  in  the  autumn  of  19 18. 

Liggett's  attack  of  October  14th  was  our  last 
effort  which  could  be  called  a  general  attack  before 


518  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  final  drive  beginning  November  ist,  which  broke 
the  German  line.  The  general  attack  of  September 
26th  had  broken  through  the  old  trench  system  for 
deep  gains;  that  of  October  4th,  with  the  driving 
of  two  wedges  on  either  side  of  the  whale-back,  had 
taken  the  Aire  valley  and  the  gap  of  Grandpre,  and 
brought  us  up  to  the  Kriemhilde  Stellung,  or  main 
line  of  resistance  of  the  whale-back;  that  of  October 
14th  aimed  to  drive  a  wedge  on  either  side  of  the 
Romagne  heights,  taking  the  Kriemhilde,  the  two 
wedges  meeting  at  Grand  Carre  farm  in  their  con- 
verging movement  to  deliver  the  heights  into  our 
hands.  Thus  Army  ambition  was  soaring  again.  If 
it  had  succeeded,  we  should  have  been  up  to  the 
Freya  Stellung,  another  fragmentary  trench  system, 
the  second  and  inferior  line  of  resistance  of  the 
whale-back,  and  we  might  not  have  had  to  wait 
another  two  weeks  for  victory.  The  progress  of 
the  other  armies  summoned  us,  as  it  had  at  every 
stage  of  the  battle,  to  a  superhuman  effort  to  reach 
the  German  line  of  communications,  which  might 
now  mean  a  complete  military  disaster  for  the 
enemy. 

The  32nd  was  still  facing  the  Cote  Dame  Marie 
and  the  town  of  Romagne  in  front  of  the  loop  in 
the  Kriemhilde.  On  its  left  was  the  42nd,  which 
had  just  relieved  the  exhausted  ist  and  was  to  drive 
the  western  wedge  through  the  trench  system  of  the 


THROUGH  THE  KRIEMHILDE      519 

Chatillon  ridge  and  on  through  the  Romagne  Wood 
and  the  large  Bantheville  Wood. 

I  have  written  so  much  in  my  first  book  about  the 
42nd,  in  its  Baccarat  sector,  in  its  "  stone-walling  " 
against  the  fifth  German  offensive,  in  the  Chateau- 
Thierry  counter-offensive,  that  it  seems  necessary  to 
say  only  that  it  was  the  Rainbow  Division,  the  sec- 
ond of  National  Guard  divisions  to  arrive  in  France, 
which  had  shown  such  mettle,  immediately  it  was 
sent  to  the  trenches,  that  it  was  given  every  test 
which  a  toughened  division  might  be  asked  to  un- 
dergo. Major-General  Charles  T.  Menoher,  who 
had  been  in  command  throughout  its  battle  service, 
had  the  poise  requisite  to  handling  the  infantry  regi- 
ments from  Alabama,  Iowa,  New  York,  and  Ohio, 
and  all  the  other  units  from  many  States,  in  their 
proud  rivalry. 

The  Arrows  of  the  32nd,  from  Michigan  and 
Wisconsin,  now  on  the  Rainbows'  right,  had  been 
on  their  right  when  both  divisions  crossed  the  Ourcq 
and  stormed  the  heights  with  a  courage  that  disre- 
garded appalling  casualties.  Neither  the  42nd  nor 
the  32nd  would  admit  that  it  had  any  equals  among 
National  Guard  divisions.  After  their  weeks  of 
fighting  in  the  Marne  region,  the  Rainbows  had  come 
out  with  staggeringly  numerous  gaps  in  their  ranks 
as  a  result  of  their  victory,  which  had  been  filled  by 
replacements  who  were  not  even  now  fully  trained. 


520 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


They  had  been  in  line  for  the  Saint-Mihiel  attack, 
but  were  brought  to  the  Argonne  to  be  ready  in  re- 
serve when  a  veteran  division  should  be  required  for 
a  vital  thrust.  No  sooner  had  they  gone  into  line 
than  they  found  that  the  enemy,  taking  a  lesson  from 
the  success  of  the  ist  and  the  32nd  and  the  3rd, 
which  had  entered  the  Kriemhilde,  had  been  improv- 
ing his  Kriemhilde  line,  concentrating  more  artillery 
and  establishing  machine-gun  posts  to  cover  any 
points  where  experience  had  developed  weakness. 
The  Kriemhilde  had  thus  far  resisted  all  our  attacks. 
It  combined  many  of  the  defensive  advantages  of 
the  old  trench  system  with  the  latest  methods  of  open 
war  defense  upon  chosen  and  very  formidable 
ground.  The  42nd  was  to  storm  one  of  its  key 
points,  the  Chatillon  ridge. 

Will  any  officer  or  man  of  the  division  forget  the 
days  of  October  14th,  15th,  and  16th?  At  the  very 
start  they  were  at  close  quarters,  their  units  inter- 
mingling with  the  Germans  in  rush  and  counter-rush, 
in  the  midst  of  machine-gun  nests,  trenches,  and  wire 
entanglements,  where  man  met  man  in  a  free-for-all 
grapple  to  the  death.  The  rains  were  at  their  worst. 
Every  fighter  was  sopping  wet.  It  was  impossible 
to  know  where  units  were  in  that  fiendish  battle 
royal,  isolated  by  curtains  of  fire. 

Summerall  was  now  in  command  of  the  Fifth 
.Corps.     "  Per  schedule  "  and  "  go  through  "  Sum- 


THROUGH  THE  KRIEMHILDE      52 r 

merall,  who  had  driven  a  human  wedge  as  a  division 
commander,  was  to  drive  another  as  a  corps  com- 
mander. His  restless  personal  observation  kept 
touch  with  the  work  of  brigade  and  regiment;  his 
iron  will  was  never  more  determined. 

The  42nd  did  not  keep  to  the  impossible  objective 
beyond,  but  it  did  "  go  through  "  the  formidable 
Kriemhilde,  which  had  been  our  nightmare  for  three 
weeks,  in  one  of  the  most  terrifically  concentrated 
actions  of  the  battle.  There  was  hard-won  progress 
on  the  first  day  on  the  bloody  slopes  of  Hill  288, 
while  patrols,  pushing  ahead,  found  themselves 
under  cross-fire  which  could  not  be  withstood.  When 
night  came,  the  units  in  front  were  already  exhausted 
in  a  day  of  fighting  of  the  most  wearing  kind.  "  At- 
tack again  !  '  Wire  which  was  not  on  artillery  maps, 
swept  by  machine-gun  fire,  meant  delay,  but  no  re- 
pulse. The  German  resistance  was  unusually  brave 
and  skillful  in  making  the  most  of  positions  as  vital 
and  well-prepared  as  they  were  naturally  strong. 
The  right,  its  units  rushing  here  and  crawling  there 
to  avoid  the  blasts  of  machine-gun  fire,  had  put  Hill 
242  and  Hill  288  well  behind  it  on  the  second  day, 
and  had  reached  the  gassed  Romagne  Wood.  The 
center  was  held  up  on  the  slippery  and  tricky  ascents 
of  the  Chatillon  ridge,  where  the  German  machine- 
gunners  stood  until  they  were  killed  or  so  badly 
wounded  that  they  could  not  serve  their  guns;  and 


522  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  German  infantry,  literally  in  a  fortress  strong- 
hold, became  more  desperate  with  every  hour 
throughout  the  afternoon,  while  dusk  found  the  shiv- 
ering and  tenacious  Rainbows  dug  into  the  sodden 
earth  and  holding  their  ground.  Shattered  units 
were  reorganized,  and  fresh  units  sent  forward  for 
the  attack  of  the  next  day,  which  took  the  ridge. 
The  Kriemhilde  Stellung  was  won. 

Those  three  days  had  been  more  horrible  than 
even  the  Rainbows  had  known:  days  which  have 
either  to  be  told  in  infinite  detail,  or  expressed  as  a 
savage  wrestle  for  mastery.  Few  prisoners  might 
be  taken  in  such  confused  fighting,  when  the  Ger- 
mans stuck  to  the  last  to  their  fox-holes  and  their 
fragments  of  trenches.  The  path  of  the  advance 
was  strewn  with  German  dead.  Army  ambition  had 
gained  much,  if  not  its  extreme  goal.  It  had  a  jump- 
ing-off  place  for  a  final  and  decisive  general  attack. 
There  remained  nothing  further  for  the  42nd  dur- 
ing the  next  two  weeks  except  to  make  sure  that  its 
gains  were  not  lost.  This  required  constant  patrols 
and  costly  vigils  under  gas,  artillery,  and  machine- 
gun  fire,  which  were  very  wearing.  On  October  30th 
the  division  was  relieved  by  the  2nd,  which  passed 
through  it  for  the  great  advance  of  November  1st. 
The  42nd  had  suffered  2,895  casualties  in  this  opera- 
tion. It  could  retire  after  its  victory,  in  full  confi- 
dence that  it  had  kept  faith  with  the  high  expecta- 


THROUGH  THE  KRIEMHILDE      523 

tions  of  its  future  from  the  day  of  its  organization. 
It  had  brought  great  honor  to  itself  as  a  division, 
to  the  whole  National  Guard,  and  to  the  replace- 
ment officers  and  men  who  had  served  in  it. 

The  32nd's  attack  on  October  14th  was  of  course 
intimately  connected  with  that  of  the  42nd.  Having 
assisted  the  1st  to  drive  the  wedge  over  the  wall  of 
the  Aire,  the  Arrows  had  still  enough  vitality  left 
to  carry  out  their  eager  desire  to  complete  the  con- 
quest of  the  section  of  the  Kriemhilde  on  their  front. 
They  knew  that  they  had  a  hard  nut  to  crack,  and 
they  began  its  cracking  by  turning  all  the  power  of 
their  artillery  on  to  the  German  positions  from  noon 
of  the  13th  until  5.30  on  the  morning  of  the  14th, 
when,  under  as  deep  a  barrage  as  the  tireless  artillery 
could  make,  they  started  for  the  entrenchments  on 
the  Dame  Marie  ridge,  and  the  town  of  Romagne. 
Their  left  struggled  up  the  slopes  of  the  ridge,  but 
had  to  halt  and  dig  in,  waiting  for  more  artillery 
preparation  to  silence  the  array  of  machine-guns  and 
guns  which,  despite  the  eighteen  hours  of  bombard- 
ment, began  firing  almost  as  soon  as  the  charge 
began. 

On  the  right  success  was  more  prompt.  By  noon 
a  battalion  was  past  the  village  which  had  resisted 
so  many  attempts  to  capture  it.  Knowing  Romagne 
of  old,  the  right  had  executed  a  clever  flanking  move- 
ment, under  the  special  protection  of  a  flexible  bar- 


524  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

rage,  which  outwitted  the  enemy.  By  11.30  the 
village  was  in  the  hands  of  the  swiftly  moving  Ar- 
rows, and  entirely  mopped  up.  Its  name  might  now 
be  inscribed  on  the  division  banners  with  those  of 
Fismes  and  Juvigny.  The  Germans  had  arranged 
many  bloody  traps  in  the  streets,  but  the  men  of  the 
32nd  had  taken  too  many  positions  from  the  enemy 
to  be  fooled  by  such  tricks. 

The  left  meanwhile  was  burrowing  into  the  steep 
and  slippery  sides  of  the  Dame  Marie  ridge,  with  a 
blast  of  machine-gun  fire  grilling  every  head  that 
showed  itself.  There  are  occasions  when  officer  and 
soldier  know  that  the  odds  are  too  great  against 
them;  when  they  halt  and  dig,  from  the  same  in- 
stinct that  makes  a  man  step  back  from  a  passing 
train.  This  was  such  an  occasion.  It  looked  as  if 
the  ridge  could  not  possibly  be  taken  in  front,  when 
the  men  on  the  extreme  flank,  quick  to  press  forward 
instantly  there  was  any  opening  in  the  wall  of  fire, 
saw  their  opportunity.  The  42nd,  with  their  first 
onrush  halted,  had  kept  on  pushing,  and  they  were 
driving  the  Germans  off  Hill  288,  which  had  been 
pouring  its  fire  into  the  ranks  of  the  32nd  men 
facing  the  Dame  Marie.  This  gave  a  purchase  for 
a  tactical  stroke,  which  was  improved  before  the 
German  realized  that  he  had  fumbled,  and  could 
retrieve  himself.  A  reserve  battalion  which  was 
hastened  forward  slipped  around  to  the  left  of  the 


THROUGH  THE  KRIEMHILDE      525 

Dame  Marie.  With  its  pressure  on  the  flank,  and 
that  of  the  center  regiment,  which  had  lost  liaison 
on  the  left  but  had  no  thought  of  stopping  while  it 
could  keep  up  with  the  right,  the  enemy  was  forced 
completely  off  the  ridge  by  dark,  and  the  advance 
pressed  on  into  the  woods  beyond.  The  Arrows 
had  now  not  only  penetrated  the  Kriemhilde,  but 
had  gone  clear  through  it.  Too  much  gold  can  not 
be  used  in  State  capitals  in  inscribing  the  Dame 
Marie  beside  the  heights  of  the  Ourcq  to  glorify 
the  deeds  of  the  32nd  for  the  admiration  of  future 
generations.  Despite  its  two  weeks'  hard  service, 
it  was  to  remain  in  line, — or  rather  to  continue  ad- 
vancing for  four  days  longer,  as  it  grappled  with 
the  machine-gun  nests  in  Bantheville  Wood. 

On  the  night  of  the  I9th-20th  it  was  relieved  by 
the  89th.  All  the  survivors  among  numerous  re- 
placements which  it  had  received  after  Juvigny  could 
claim  to  belong  to  that  fraternity  of  veterans,  which, 
from  the  hour  they  marched  down  the  apron  of  the 
Ourcq  in  parade  formation  in  the  face  of  the  enemy's 
guns,  had  shown  the  qualities  which  make  armies 
unconquerable.  No  division  ever  stuck  to  its  knit- 
ting more  consistently,  or  had  been  readier  to  take 
the  brunt  of  any  action.  Its  part  in  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  battle  had  been  vital  and  prolonged.  The 
number  of  its  prisoners,  all  taken  in  small  grouos 
in  desperate  fighting,  was  1,095,  its  casualties  were 


526  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

5,019,  and  it  had  identified  the  elements  of  nine 
German  divisions  on  its  front. 

On  its  right  in  the  attack  of  October  14th  a  divi- 
sion new  to  the  great  battle  had  come  into  line — the 
regular  5th,  under  command  of  Major-General  John 
E.  McMahon.  Its  emblem  was  the  ace  of  diamonds. 
The  5th  was  just  as  regular  as  the  1st,  2nd,  3rd,  or 
4th,  and  it  had  no  inkling  of  a  doubt  that  it  could 
prove  as  ably  as  the  other  four  that  it  was  the 
"  best "  regular  division.  As  a  basis  for  its  confi- 
dence was  its  record  in  Lorraine,  where  it  had  prep- 
aration for  a  larger  role  in  its  faultless  taking  of  the 
village  of  Frapelle,  when  for  the  first  time  in  two 
years  the  Vosges  mountains  had  resounded  with  the 
bombardment  of  an  offensive  action.  Officers  and 
men  had  been  thoroughly  drilled.  Uniformity  had 
not  suffered  from  the  injection  of  inexperienced  re- 
placements. The  5  th  had  both  the  ardor  of  the 
fresh  divisions  which  had  gone  in  on  September  26th 
without  having  previously  been  under  fire,  and  long 
trench  service,  which  made  the  Aces  the  more  eager 
to  be  in  the  "  big  show." 

The  command  took  them  at  their  own  estimate 
in  a  characteristic — an  aggravatedly  characteristic — 
fashion.  If  ever  a  division  were  warranted  in  losing 
heart  on  the  ground  that  their  superiors  were  "  not 
playing  the  game  "  with  them,  it  was  the  5th,  which 
was  submitted  to  everything  in  the  way  of  changing 


THROUGH  THE  KRIEMHILDE      527 

orders  that  is  ruinous  to  morale.  It  was  moved 
about  without  any  regard  to  the  chessboard  rules 
of  war.  Doubtless  this  was  necessary;  but  it  was 
hard  on  the  5th,  though  it  was  only  to  confirm  other 
people,  including  the  Germans,  in  the  opinion  that 
the  5th  was  a  great  division. 

On  the  night  of  October  nth-i2th  a  brigade  of 
the  5th  was  ordered  to  take  over  the  line  of  the  80th 
and  a  part  of  the  line  of  the  4th.  The  sector  was  on 
the  Cunel-Brieulles  road,  where  the  80th  had  been 
checked,  and  under  the  flanking  fire  of  the  galleries 
of  guns,  on  the  right  from  east  of  the  Meuse,  on  the 
left  from  the  whale-back,  as  well  as  in  front,  which 
I  have  described  fully  in  my  account  of  the  4th  divi- 
sion. Relief  was  not  completed  until  after  daylight, 
at  6.30  in  the  morning.  Patrols  were  sent  forward 
into  the  Pultiere  Wood  when  word  came  that  the 
Germans  were  massing  for  a  counter-attack.  The 
5th  was  preparing  to  receive  them,  and  establishing 
itself  in  its  sector,  when  orders  came  that  it  was  to 
withdraw.  Nothing  irritates  a  soldier  of  spirit 
more  than  to  be  sent  into  position  for  action,  and 
then  to  turn  his  back  upon  the  enemy.  Withdraw ! 
The  aces  of  diamonds  to  withdraw  !  They  were  will- 
ing to  play  the  game,  but  they  were  filled  with  dis- 
gust at  such  an  order.  After  long  marches  from 
the  rear,  after  spending  the  whole  night  in  effecting 
a  most  difficult  relief  under  continuous  fire,  after  a 


528  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

day  full  of  annoyances  in  organizing  an  uncertain 
line  swept  by  shell-bursts,  they  were  to  march  back 
through  the  night  in  the  gamut  of  the  enemy  artil- 
lery, which  became  increasingly  active  in  evident 
knowledge  of  their  exposure.  Units  had  as  much 
reason  for  becoming  confused  as  they  would  have 
in  a  night  attack. 

Disheartened  at  having  to  retreat — for  that  was 
the  word  for  the  maneuver — some  showed  less 
alacrity  than  in  going  to  the  front,  while  the  filtering 
process  of  withdrawal  under  the  cross-fire  was  bound 
to  separate  men  from  their  commands.  The  lan- 
guage they  used  of  course  was  against  the  German 
artillery,  not  against  high  commanders.  A  part  of 
the  relief  had  to  be  carried  out  in  broad  daylight  in 
sight  of  the  German  artillery  observers;  indeed,  it 
was  not  finished  until  noon.  Without  having  made 
a  single  charge,  the  brigade  had  been  exhausted  and 
suffered  many  casualties. 

The  change  of  plan  considered  using  the  5th  as  a 
fresh  division,  which  it  would  not  long  remain  if  this 
kind  of  maneuvering  were  continued.  Army  ambi- 
tion had  decided  that  it  was  to  be  the  eastern  wedge 
in  the  converging  attack  to  Grand  Carre  farm, 
of  which  the  42nd  was  to  be  the  western.  Hence 
a  change  of  sectors  for  the  5th,  which,  after  march- 
ing into  hell's  jaws  and  out  again,  was  to  be  "  side- 
slipped "  into  the  sector  of  the  amazingly  tenacious 


THROUGH  THE  KRIEMHILDE      529 

3rd,  which,  though  it  might  well  be  considered  "  ex- 
pended "  by  its  severe  casualties  and  long  exertions, 
was  to  take  over  the  wicked  sector  from  which  the 
5th  had  been  withdrawn.  "Side-slipping"  was  al- 
most as  common  and  hateful  a  word  in  the  battle  as 
liaison.  Consider  a  battalion  as  a  bit  of  paper  fas- 
tened by  a  pin  to  a  map,  and  moving  it  right  or  left 
was  a  simple  matter;  but  moving  men  under  shell- 
and  machine-gun  fire,  in  the  darkness,  from  one  series 
of  fox-holes  to  another  with  which  they  were  not 
familiar,  you  may  be  assured  on  the  word  of  any 
soldier,  who  lost  a  night's  sleep,  while  soaked  to 
the  skin  by  the  chill  rain,  and  had  his  comrades 
killed  in  the  process,  was  anything  but  a  simple 
matter. 

Naturally  the  three  divisions,  the  5th,  32nd,  and 
42nd,  were  interdependent  for  success  in  this  con- 
verging attack.  As  the  veterans  of  the  42nd,  doing 
all  that  veterans  could  do,  were  three  days  in  taking 
the  Chatillon  ridge,  and  the  regulars  of  the  5th 
could  not  bring  to  life  their  dead  in  the  Rappes 
Wood  to  continue  charging,  either  division  had  an- 
other reason  than  the  unconquerable  resistance  on 
its  own  front  for  not  keeping  the  schedule  of  high 
ambition. 

According  to  the  original  plan,  the  Aces  of  the 
5th,  passing  through  the  3rd,  were  to  advance  across 
open  ground  in  a  corridor  between  the  artillery  fire 


530  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

of  the  Romagne  heights  and  the  flanking  machine- 
gun  nests  of  the  Pultiere  and  Rappes  Woods,  over 
which  flanking  artillery  fire  would  pass  from  the 
heights  east  of  the  Meuse.  The  5th's  commander 
was  to  change  the  plan — another  change  with  addi- 
tional maneuvers,  though  a  wise  one — by  attacking 
the  Pultiere  Wood,  which  would  save  the  Aces  from 
some  flanking  machine-gun  fire  on  the  right. 

It  should  have  been  no  surprise,  after  the  com- 
motion due  to  the  "  side-slipping,"  double  reliefs, 
and  counter-marching,  that  the  enemy  knew  that  an 
attack  was  coming.  Only  if  he  had  lost  all  tactical 
sense  would  he  have  failed  to  foresee  its  nature.  He 
was  ready  with  all  his  galleries  of  guns,  and  with 
his  machine-gunes  regrouped  to  meet  the  emergency, 
when  the  wave  of  the  5th,  including  troops  which 
had  been  up  two  nights  in  making  a  relief,  being 
relieved,  and  taking  over  again,  began  the  attack, 
under  insufficient  artillery  support,  in  all  the  ardor 
of  their  first  charge  in  the  great  battle. 

Our  barrage  had  not  silenced  the  machine-gun 
nests,  which  began  firing  immediately.  The  enemy's 
ample  artillery  shelled  our  echelons  in  support,  caus- 
ing losses  and  a  certain  amount  of  inevitable  con- 
fusion, as  they  were  forced  to  take  cover  and  deploy. 
It  also  laid  down  a  barrage  in  front  of  our  first 
wave;  but  the  Aces  passed  through  the  swath  of  the 
bursts  in  steady  progress  up  the  bare  slopes  under 


THROUGH  THE  KRIEMHILDE      531 

increasing  machine-gun  fire,  and  reached  the  crests 
of  Hills  260  and  271.  There  they  were  exposed 
to  all  the  guns  of  the  galleries,  and  to  machine-gun 
fire  from  the  direction  of  Bantheville  in  front,  from 
Romagne  on  the  left,  and  the  Pultiere  and  Rappes 
woods  on  the  right.  To  pass  over  the  crest  and 
down  the  slopes  into  the  valley  beyond  was  literally 
to  open  their  arms  to  receive  the  bullets  and  shells. 
What  use  was  it  for  the  5th's  batteries  to  face  around 
due  east  from  the  line  of  attack  toward  the  enemy 
batteries  behind  the  Borne  de  Cornouiller,  which 
were  out  of  their  reach? 

The  Pultiere,  the  southern  of  the  two  woods,  was 
about  half  the  size  of  the  Rappes,  which  was  a  mile 
long  and  separated  from  it  by  a  narrow  open  space. 
The  ground  was  uneven,  sloping  upward  to  hills 
which  made  the  defense  of  their  depths  the  easier. 
Our  exploiting  force  sent  into  the  Pultiere  to  protect 
the  flank  of  the  main  advance  had  not  been  strong 
enough  for  its  purpose.  After  passing  through 
flanking  fire  from  the  direction  of  Cunel,  it  was 
checked  in  the  woods  by  the  machine-guns  concealed 
in  the  thickets,  which  also  gave  cover  for  machine- 
guns  firing  not  only  into  the  flank  but  into  the  right 
rear  of  the  main  advance.  The  next  step  was  to 
take  the  Pultiere  by  a  concentrated  attack  during  the 
afternoon,  which  drove  forward  until  we  had  dug  in 
face  to  face  with  the  remaining  machine-gunners  in 


532  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

an  irregularity  of  line  which  was  always  the  result 
of  determined  units  fighting  machine-gun  nests  in  a 
forest.  The  Aces  who  had  won  this  much,  their 
fighting  blood  fully  aroused,  proceeded  to  carry  out 
their  mission  the  next  day,  the  15th,  of  further  re- 
lieving the  flank  of  the  advance  on  the  hills,  which 
was  being  sorely  punished  as  it  held  to  its  gains  under 
storms  of  shells. 

Now  imperishable  valor  was  to  lead  to  a  tragedy 
of  misunderstanding.  On  through  the  northern  edge 
of  Pultiere  Wood,  across  the  open  space  between  the 
two  woods  in  face  of  the  machine-gun  fire  from  the 
edge  of  the  Rappes  Wood,  then  through  the  dense 
growth  of  the  Rappes,  infiltrating  around  machine- 
gun  nests,  and  springing  upon  their  gunners  in  sur- 
prise, again  charging  them  full  tilt  in  front,  passing 
by  many  which  were  "  playing  possum,"  these  Aces 
of  American  infantrymen,  numbers  thinning  from 
death  and  wounds,  but  having  no  thought  except  to 
"  get  there,"  kept  on  until  a  handful  of  survivors 
reached  the  northern  edge  of  the  Rappes.  This 
was  their  destination.  They  had  gone  where  they 
were  told  to  go.  They  dug  in  among  the  tree  roots 
in  the  inky  darkness,  without  the  remotest  idea  of 
falling  back,  as  they  waited  for  support  to  come. 

Now  on  the  morning  of  that  day,  the  15th — after 
casualties  had  been  streaming  back  all  night  under 
shell-fire  from  the  bare  hills  which  were  being  reso- 


THROUGH  THE  KRIEMHILDE      533 

lutely  held  with  rapidly  diminishing  numbers, — it 
was  found  that  the  total  remaining  effectives  of  three 
regiments  were  only  eleven  hundred  men,  a  hundred 
more  than  one  battalion.  Having  asked  the  Corps 
for  reserves,  the  division  commander  had  attacked 
for  the  Rappes  Wood  as  we  have  seen.  The  reports 
that  came  in  to  Division  Headquarters  from  the 
morning's  effort  showed  that  we  were  making  little 
progress  in  the  wood,  and  were  having  very  hard 
fighting  still  in  the  Pultiere.  The  brigade  com- 
mander ordered  another  attack  on  Rappes  for  the 
afternoon.  This  the  division  commander  counter- 
manded. In  view  of  lack  of  support  on  his  flank, 
the  continuing  drain  of  casualties  and  the  situation 
of  the  division  as  a  whole,  he  felt  warranted  in 
indicating  that  any  units  which  might  have  made 
an  entry  into  Rappes  withdraw  to  the  Pultiere. 
The  next  morning  patrols  which  reached  the  men 
who  were  in  the  northern  edge  of  Rappes  passed  on 
the  word  that  they  were  to  fall  back.  The  gallant 
little  band,  surrounded  by  German  snipers,  had  not 
been  able  to  send  back  any  message.  Weren't  they 
of  the  5th  ?  Hadn't  they  been  told  to  "  go  through  '* 
the  wood?  Was  it  not  the  regulation  in  the  5th  to 
obey  orders?  Withdraw!  Very  well;  this  was  or- 
ders, too.  From  their  fox-holes  where,  so  far  at 
least,  they  had  held  their  own  in  a  sniping  contest 
with  the  enemy,  they  retraced  their  steps  over  the 


534  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

ground  they  had  won  past  the  bodies  of  their  dead 
comrades.  Before  Division  Headquarters  knew  of 
their  success,  the  evacuation  of  Rappes  was  com- 
pleted. 

The  night  of  the  16th  the  total  rifle  strength  of 
the  division  was  reported  as  3,316,  or  a  little  more 
than  one-fourth  of  normal.  On  the  17th  Major- 
General  Hanson  E.  Ely  took  command  of  the  5th. 
He  was  of  the  school  of  the  1st,  long  in  France;  a 
blue-eyed  man  of  massive  physique,  who  met  all 
situations  smilingly  and  with  a  firm  jaw.  The 
Pultiere  Wood  was  definitely  mopped  up  during 
the  day. 

The  brigade  which  had  been  in  the  3rd  Division's 
sector  and  suffered  the  most  casualties  and  exhaus- 
tion was  relieved.  At  least  the  5th,  weakened  as  it 
was  by  a  battle  in  which  the  Aces  fought  as  if  they 
were  the  whole  pack  of  cards,  must  hold  the  Pultiere, 
and  Hills  260  and  271.  On  the  night  of  the  16th- 
17th  the  divisional  engineers  did  a  remarkable  piece 
of  work,  even  for  engineers.  They  brought  up  under 
shell-fire  and  gas,  and  laid  under  shell-  and  machine- 
gun  fire,  two  thousand  yards  of  double  wire  to  pro- 
tect the  tired  infantry,  which  was  busily  digging  in, 
against  counter-attacks. 

By  this  time,  of  course,  the  prospect  of  taking 
Grand  Carre  farm  by  the  converging  movement 
seemed  out  of  the  question.     The  farm  was  more 


THROUGH  THE  KRIEMHILDE      535 

than  a  mile  beyond  Bantheville,  which  was  nearly  a 
mile  beyond  the  southern  edge  of  the  Rappes  Wood. 
But  when  the  32nd  reported  progress  in  the  Banthe- 
ville Wood  on  the  18th,  and  its  patrols  had  seen  no 
one  in  Bantheville,  the  5th  was  sent  to  the  attack, 
again.  Its  patrols,  which  reached  the  edge  of  the 
town,  found  it  well  populated  with  machine-gunners, 
who  might  have  only  recently  arrived.  As  for  the 
Rappes  Wood,  all  the  cunning  and  daring  we  could 
exert  in  infiltration  could  take  us  only  four  hundred 
yards  into  its  depths,  where  the  Germans  had  been 
forewarned  to  preparedness  by  their  previous  expe- 
rience. 

On  the  19th  the  5th  held  fast  under  the  welter  of 
shell-fire  from  the  heights  and  across  the  Meuse, 
while  General  Ely  straightened  out  his  organization, 
and  applied  remedies  for  a  better  liaison  between  the 
artillery  and  the  infantry.  On  the  20th,  the  idea  of 
"  pushing "  still  dominant,  under  a  heavy  barrage 
the  5th  concentrated  all  its  available  numbers  of  ex- 
hausted men  in  a  hastily  formed  plan  for  another 
attempt  for  the  Rappes  Wood.  It  made  some  two 
hundred  yards'  progress  against  the  sprays  of  bul- 
lets ripping  through  the  thickets.  The  5th  was  "  ex- 
pended "  in  vitality  and  numbers  after  these  grueling 
six  days;  but  it  was  not  to  give  up  while  the  Germans 
were  in  the  Rappes  Wood.  The  Aces  made  swift 
work  of  its  taking  on  the  next  day.     Their  artillery 


536  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

and  that  of  the  3rd  on  their  left  gave  the  men  a 
good  rolling  barrage.  The  enemy  artillery  replied 
in  a  storm  immediately;  but  the  Aces,  assisted  by 
the  men  of  the  3rd  Division  attacking  from  their 
side,  drove  through  the  shell-fire  and  all  the  machine- 
gun  nests  with  what  one  of  the  men  called  a  "  four 
of  a  kind  "  sweep.  At  5  p.m.  the  reports  said  that 
the  wood  was  not  only  occupied  but  "  riveted."  At 
6  p.m.  the  enemy  answered  this  success  with  a 
counter-attack,  which  the  5th's  artillery  met,  in  three 
minutes  after  it  had  started,  with  a  barrage  which 
was  its  undoing.  Having  consolidated  Rappes  and 
avenged  the  pioneers  who  had  first  traversed  it,  the 
5th  was  now  relieved  by  the  90th,  and  sent  to  corps 
reserve.  The  exposure  had  brought  on  much  sick- 
ness, which  increased  the  gaps  due  to  casualties.  Ab- 
sorbing three  thousand  replacements,  General  Ely, 
reflecting  in  his  personality  the  spirit  of  his  men,  was 
now  to  prepare  them  for  their  brilliant  part  in  the 
drive  of  November  1st. 

The  3rd  Division,  on  the  right  of  the  5th,  had 
had  of  course  to  submit  to  the  same  annoyance  of 
"side-slipping"  as  the  5th  in  the  interchange  of 
sectors.  Having  assisted  in  driving  one  of  the 
wedges  of  October  4th,  it  was  now  to  continue  under 
the  shell-fire  from  the  neighborhood  of  the  Borne 
de  Cornouiller  across  the  Meuse  in  forcing  its  way 
still  farther.     It  made  slow  and  difficult  progress  in 


THROUGH  THE  KRIEMHILDE      537 

the  eastern  edge  of  the  Pultiere  Wood  and  the  Foret 
Wood  on  the  14th,  and,  the  division  sector  being 
swung  east,  as  the  5th,  in  turn  dependent  upon  the 
other  divisions,  had  a  misfortune  in  the  Rappes 
Wood,  not  even  the  dependable  infantry  of  the  3rd 
could  make  headway  under  flanking  fire  against  the 
Clairs  Chenes  Wood  and  Hill  299. 

On  the  1 6th  Brigadier-General  Preston  Brown, 
one  of  the  younger  brigadiers,  a  well-known  Leaven- 
worth man  who  had  been  chief  of  staff  of  the  2nd 
Division  in  its  stand  on  the  Paris-Chateau-Thierry 
road,  took  command  of  the  3rd.  His  appointment 
was  significant  of  how  youth  will  always  be  served 
under  the  test  of  war.  On  the  17th  nothing  was  ex- 
pected of  the  division  by  the  Corps;  on  the  18th  it 
advanced  in  liaison  with  the  5th  in  the  attack  on  the 
Rappes  Wood,  which  only  partially  succeeded.  Now 
that  tough  and  dependable  3rd  took  over  the  front 
of  the  4th  Division,  which  had  been  in  since  Septem- 
ber 26th,  and  with  all  four  regiments  in  line  its  front 
reached  to  the  bank  of  the  Meuse  from  Cunel. 

On  the  20th,  the  day  that  the  5th  was  to  take 
Rappes,  General  Brown  now  having  made  his  prep- 
arations, the  3rd  went  for  Clairs  Chenes  Wood  and 
Hill  299  in  deadly  earnest,  which  meant  that  some- 
thing would  have  to  "  break."  It  was  characteristic 
of  the  handicaps  under  which  every  division  labored 
that  in  crossing  the  open   spaces  on  their  way  to 


538  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Clairs  Chenes  the  3rd  had  flanking  machine-gun  fire 
from  the  machine-guns  in  the  Rappes  Wood,  which 
had  not  yet  been  taken.  The  3rd  took  Clairs  Chenes, 
but  the  flanking  movement  planned  for  the  taking 
of  299  could  not  go  through.  The  next  day  General 
Brown  converged  two  attacks  upon  299  and  297. 
Two  of  the  highest  hills  in  the  region,  which  had 
long  been  a  vantage  point  for  observers,  were  won, 
and  the  3rd's  line  straightened  out  v/ith  veteran  pre- 
cision. 

The  3rd  had  been  going  too  fast  these  last  two 
days  to  suit  the  enemy's  plans  of  defense.  He  con- 
centrated his  artillery  in  a  violent  bombardment  on 
Clairs  Chenes,  and  under  a  barrage  worthy  of  Ger- 
man gunners  in  their  most  prodigal  days  the  German 
infantry,  in  one  of  those  spasmodic  counter-attacks 
which  showed  all  their  former  spirit,  forced  our 
machine-gunners  and  engineers  to  withdraw.  A  regi- 
mental commander  repeated  an  incident  of  the  3rd's 
defense  of  Mezy  and  the  railroad  track  along  the 
Marne,  when  he  gathered  runners  and  all  the  men 
he  could  find  in  the  vicinity,  and  led  them  in  a  charge 
which  drove  the  Germans  out  of  the  wood,  and 
reestablished  the  line.  The  Germans  found  what 
compensation  they  could  by  pounding  Hill  299  all 
night  with  their  guns;  but  that  hill  was  too  high  and 
too  valuable  to  be  yielded  by  such  stalwart  depend- 
ables  as  the  men  of  the  3rd.     During  the  next  five 


THROUGH  THE  KRIEMHILDE      539 

days,  while  our  whole  line  was  preparing  for  the 
drive  of  November  1st,  the  3rd's  active  patrols  even 
entered  the  village  of  Brieulles  on  the  river  bank, 
which  for  over  four  weeks  had  been  a  sore  point 
with  us;  but  they  were  told  that  it  was  too  danger- 
ous a  position  to  hold,  and  withdrew. 

On  the  night  of  the  26th  the  3rd  was  relieved  by 
the  5th,  now  recuperated.  It  was  a  pity  that  the  3rd, 
after  its  wonderful  record  in  the  battle,  could  not 
have  participated  in  the  sweep  of  our  battalions 
down  the  far  slopes  of  the  whale-back.  In  line 
since  October  1st,  four  weeks  lacking  two  days,  it 
had  paid  a  price  for  taking  the  Mamelle  trench,  and 
for  all  its  enduring,  skillful  attacks  under  that  dia- 
bolical cross-fire  from  the  galleries  of  heights.  Its 
casualties,  8,422,  were  more  than  half  its  infantry, 
and,  taken  in  connection  with  the  positions  it  gained 
and  its  length  of  service,  are  an  all-sufficient  tribute 
to  its  character. 


XXXI 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL 


Hopeless  stabbing  at  the  flanks — The  Lightning  Division  at 
Grandpre — "Vertical  warfare — Scaling  walls  to  the  citadel — 
Stumbling  toward  Loges  Wood — The  All-Americas  still  doing 
their  part — A  bowl  east  of  the  Meuse — Approached  through 
Death  Valley — The  Blue  and  Greys  crawling  toward  the 
rim — The  rough  end  of  the  stick  for  the  Yankee  Division — 
Belleau  Wood  a  key  point — General  Edwards  and  the  staff — 
Desperate  grappling. 


The  enemy  must  make  sure  of  holding  our  left  in 
front  of  Grandpre  gap,  or  we  would  swing  toward 
the  whale-back  from  that  direction;  he  must  not  lose 
the  heights  east  of  the  Meuse,  or  we  would  cut  off 
his  line  of  retreat  across  the  river.  This  naturally 
called  for  violent  pressure  on  his  flanks  in  order  to 
draw  forces  from  his  center,  where  we  were  going 
through  the  Kriemhilde  Stellung.  During  the  third 
week  of  October  there  was  just  as  intense  fighting 
for  the  "  citadel  "  of  Grandpre  and  for  the  heights 
east  of  the  Meuse  as  for  Chatillon  and  Dame  Marie 
ridges,  and  for  the  Loges  and  the  Ormont  woods 
as  for  the  Bantheville,  Clairs  Chenes,  Rappes,  and 
Pultiere  woods. 

540 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  541 

We  shall  first  tell  the  story  of  our  left,  where  the 
78th  Division  not  only  drew  the  arrows  to  its  breast 
but  charged  them  in  their  flight,  after,  as  we  have 
seen  in  Chapter  XVIII,  the  77th,  on  the  14th  and 
15th,  had  accompanied  the  general  attack  in  fighting 
to  master  the  northern  bank  of  the  Aire.  Sacrifice 
is  the  only  word  for  the  78th's  action.  Without  ex- 
pecting that  the  division  could  gain  ground,  the  Army 
command  set  it  the  thankless  task  of  repeated  at- 
tacks to  consume  the  enemy's  strength,  which  it  car- 
ried out  with  superb  ardor  and  fortitude. 

The  78th,  originally  drawn  from  New  Jersey, 
Pennsylvania,  and  parts  of  New  York  State,  took  its 
name  of  the  "  Lightning  "  Division  from  an  obvious 
local  source.  Under  Major-General  James  H. 
McRae,  a  skillful  and  modest  commander,  both  in  its 
training  at  the  British  front  and  in  its  occupation  of 
the  Limey  sector  north  of  Toul,  where  it  made  re- 
markably successful  raids,  it  had  shown  that 
although  it  was  not  one  of  the  best  advertised  of 
National  Army  divisions  it  was  one  of  the  most 
promising.  Where  other  new  divisions  had  had  their 
first  experience  in  the  intoxicating  drive  for  three 
and  four  miles  in  the  first  stage  of  the  battle,  the 
78th  was  to  have  no  open  field  for  its  bolts  of  light- 
ning, but  must  use  them  as  hammer-heads  against 
granite,  when  it  took  over  from  the  77th  after  the 
latter  had  made  its  lodgment  in  Grandpre. 


542  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Though  we  had  the  Aire  trough,  we  were  not  yet 
through  with  the  westward  bend  of  the  Aire  river, 
where  the  bottoms  are  broad  and  swampy.  A  wedge- 
like escarpment  projects  down  to  the  town  of  Grand- 
pre  from  the  heights  of  the  Bourgogne  Wood.  This 
escarpment  afforded  machine-guns  cover  for  firing 
east  and  west  and  into  the  town.  Eastward,  high 
ground  sloping  up  from  the  river  bottoms  continues 
to  the  Loges  Wood,  which  averages  about  three- 
quarters  of  a  mile  in  breadth  and  depth,  covering 
an  eminence.  In  this  sector,  about  two  miles  in 
length,  the  78th  on  the  river  bottom  faced  command- 
ing positions  at  every  point  on  its  front.  To  the 
Germans  the  Bourgogne  Wood  was  a  bastion 
against  the  right  flank  of  the  French  Fourth  Army 
in  its  movement  toward  Sedan,  a  barrier  between  our 
flank  and  the  French,  and  the  flanking  outpost  of 
the  Loges  Wood,  as  I  have  indicated,  in  holding  us 
back  from  swinging  northward  toward  Buzancy  and 
cutting  into  the  flank  of  the  whale-back. 

Conditions  m  the  relief  of  the  77th  in  the  intense 
darkness  on  the  night  of  the  15th  were  very  mixed. 
Saint-Juvin  on  the  north  side  of  the  river,  to  the 
right  or  east,  was  securely  held.  In  Chevieres  on 
the  south  side  of  the  river  the  Lightnings  of  the 
78th  report  that  they  still  had  mopping  up  to  do 
before  they  crossed.  East  of  Grandpre  the  Aire  has 
two  beds,  which  made  the  crossing  of  the  river  bot- 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  543 

torn  under  shell-  and  machine-gun  fire  the  more  try- 
ing. In  Grandpre  the  78th  found  itself  in  possession 
of  only  a  section  of  the  town  near  the  river  bank  on 
the  morning  of  the  16th,  and  with  only  small  de- 
tachments of  troops  across  the  river, — which  it  must 
cross  in  force  under  plunging  fire  before  it  reached 
the  foot  of  the  slopes. 

It  simplifies  the  action  which  followed  to  divide 
it  into  two  parts:  the  left  brigade,  operating  against 
the  Grandpre  positions,  and  the  right  against  the 
Loges  Wood  positions.  I  shall  describe  that  of 
Grandpre  first.  A  principal  street  of  the  town  runs 
up  the  hill  against  the  western  slopes  of  the  escarp- 
ment. Machine-gunners  and  snipers  could  go  and 
come  from  the  heights  into  the  back  doors  of  the 
houses,  and  pass  upstairs  to  the  front  windows, 
whence  they  could  sweep  the  street  with  their  fire. 
The  division  knew  the  escarpment  as  the  "  citadel  "; 
for  this  tongue  of  high  ground  on  its  eastward  side 
was  surmounted  by  the  ruins  of  ancient  buildings, 
with  old  stone  walls  which  must  be  scaled,  while  the 
Saint- Juvin  road,  which  runs  past  it,  is  on  the  edge  of 
a  swamp.  The  only  way  to  attack  the  citadel  from 
the  town,  which  it  absolutely  commanded,  was  over 
a  narrow  causeway  where  a  squad  of  men  could  not 
properly  be  deployed.  My  Lord's  castle  of  olden 
times  had  an  ideal  position  for  holding  the  villagers 
on  the  river  bank  in  meek  subjection. 


544  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

A  vertical  warfare  ensued  in  Grandpre,  the  Ger- 
mans firing  downward  from  upper-story  windows 
and  the  citadel,  and  the  Americans  firing  upward. 
It  took  two  days  of  house-to-house  fighting,  in  and 
out  of  doorways,  hugging  the  house  walls,  and  taking 
house  by  house,  before  this  town  of  a  thousand  inhab- 
itants was  cleared  of  Germans,  whose  tenacity  in 
holding  the  town  itself,  when  they  had  the  citadel  at 
their  backs,  was  indicative  enough  of  the  store  they 
set  by  their  right  flank.  On  the  19th,  the  town  hav- 
ing been  mopped  up,  and  sufficient  troops  across  the 
fords  for  the  purpose,  an  attack  was  made  on  the 
citadel  and  upon  the  western  slopes  of  the  escarp- 
ment. Beyond  the  citadel  a  park  extends  for  a  dis- 
tance of  a  quarter  of  a  mile.  Beyond  that  Talma 
Hill,  and  Hills  204  and  180,  and  Bellejoyeuse  farm 
formed  a  rampart  of  heights  at  the  edge  of  the 
wood.  The  78th,  wrestling  with  machine-guns  in 
this  small  area,  was  to  use  enough  tactical  resource 
for  a  great  battle. 

At  2  A.M.  the  Lightnings  began  the  assault.  The 
hour  was  chosen  because  darkness  favored  the  plan, 
which  must  be  that  of  scaling  the  walls  of  an  ancient 
fortress.  Two  separate  parties  made  the  attempt 
on  the  walls.  The  enemy  machine-guns  from  the 
Bourgogne  Wood  instantly  concentrated  on  one 
party,  a  target  despite  the  darkness,  while  a  shower 
of  bombs  was  thrown  down  upon  their  heads.     The 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  545 

other  party  reached  the  top,  only  to  be  met  by  irre- 
sistible fire  from  machine-guns,  which  the  artillery 
had  not  been  able,  for  a  good  reason,  to  silence. 
The  guns  were  dropped  into  deep  dugouts  during 
the  bombardment,  and  hoisted  by  cables  to  turn  on 
the  advancing  infantry,  immediately  the  bombard- 
ment was  over.  This  care  in  preparation  was  an- 
other indication  of  the  value  the  Germans  placed 
on  the  citadel  and  the  hills  at  the  edge  of  the  wood. 
Under  scourging  machine-gun  fire,  the  attack  every- 
where had  to  fall  back,  after  severe  casualties,  ex- 
cept that  the  right  regiment  of  this  brigade  took 
the  Loges  farm,  between  the  Loges  Wood  and  the 
Bourgogne  Wood,  which  it  managed  to  hold  by 
skillful  digging  under  cross-fire. 

For  the  next  four  days  there  were  the  usual 
patrols,  while  the  78th's  artillery  hammered  the  cita- 
del and  the  hills.  On  the  23rd  a  small  party,  led  by 
a  lieutenant  and  three  or  four  men,  under  a  power- 
ful rolling  barrage  finally  scaled  the  walls  of  the  cita- 
del and  rushed  on  to  Bellejoyeuse  farm,  where  they 
had  a  ferocious  struggle  with  the  garrison  while  wait- 
ing for  the  second  wave  of  the  attack  to  come  to  their 
support;  but  the  second  wave,  having  been  stopped 
by  a  curtain  of  machine-gun  and  artillery  fire,  had  to 
fall  back  to  the  northern  edge  of  the  park.  The 
gallantry  of  that  little  band  had  not  been  in  vain, 
as  was  that  of  the  men  of  the  5th  who  went  through 


546  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  Rappes  Wood.  They  had  the  citadel.  There 
had  been  success,  too,  at  another  vital  point.  Talma 
Hill  had  been  taken.  The  Lightnings  on  the  left 
were  having  their  reward  for  their  arduous  sticking 
to  it  in  a  warfare  which  was  no  longer  vertical, 
though  still  at  a  great  angle  of  disadvantage. 

Their  jumping-off  places  having  been  gained,  prog- 
ress became  more  rapid  in  a  series  of  thrusts.  On 
the  25th,  one  party  entered  the  Bourgogne  Wood 
from  Talma  Hill.  There  was  a  gap  of  half  a  mile 
between  them  and  the  troops  in  the  park.  Both 
they  and  the  men  in  the  park  held  on  against  the 
worst  the  enemy's  machine-guns  and  artillery  could 
do,  while  it  took  two  days'  persistent  fighting  by 
other  units  to  conquer  machine-gun  nests  and  snipers, 
to  close  the  gap.  On  the  29th  Bellejoyeuse  farm 
was  taken;  Hill  180  beyond  it  was  taken;  Hill  204 
had  already  been  stormed  with  the  aid  of  the 
French.  The  left  brigade  of  the  78th  had  finished 
the  task. 

The  traveler  who  goes  to  the  Meuse-Argonne 
battlefield,  as  he  follows  the  road  from  Grandpre 
on  his  way  up  the  valley  of  the  sinuous  Aire,  would 
do  well  to  take  a  long  and  thoughtful  look  at  the 
sweep  of  open  ground  between  the  river  and  the 
green  mass  of  the  Loges  Wood  rising  from  its  edge. 
Let  him  imagine  the  right  brigade  of  the  78th  cross- 
ing the  river  on  the  16th,  and  plunging  through  mud 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  547 

knee-deep,  as  in  the  freshness  of  the  youth  of  its 
men  and  its  division  spirit,  without  artillery  prepara- 
tion, and  without  time  to  organize  an  attack  prop- 
erly, answering  the  call  of  the  Army  to  divert  Ger- 
man strength  from  the  fronts  of  the  divisions  in  the 
center,  it  went  across  that  exposed  zone  straight  in 
face  of  the  blaze  from  the  machine-guns  in  the  woods 
and  the  associated  heights.  Though  the  gray  valley 
floor  was  sprinkled  with  the  figures  of  the  dead  and 
wounded,  the  charge  reached  the  edge  of  the  wood; 
it  had  gained  the  foot  of  the  stairs. 

Loges  Wood  was  not  only  high  ground.  Its  char- 
acter and  situation  as  well  peculiarly  suited  it  for 
defense.  The  wood  was  thick  enough  to  prevent 
the  artillery  making  a  barrage  to  protect  the  infan- 
try, and  sparse  enough  to  give  hidden  machine-guns 
in  the  thickets  a  free  play.  It  was  estimated  that 
there  were  machine-guns  at  intervals  of  forty  yards 
in  the  German  first  line  of  defense,  not  to  mention 
the  interlocking  system  in  the  depths  of  the  woods. 
The  ground  itself  was  a  series  of  ravines,  resem- 
bling nothing  so  much  as  a  corrugated  iron-roof. 
Each  formed  a  natural  avenue  for  machine-gun  fire. 
The  machine-gunners  in  the  woods  were  supported 
by  plentiful  artillery  in  the  rear  to  concentrate  upon 
the  open  spaces  before  the  wood  and  on  the  irregular 
open  slopes  east  and  west,  which  were  linked  together 
in  singular  adaptability  for  the  enemy's  purpose.  He 


548  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

was  not,  in  this  instance,  to  depend  upon  small  groups 
of  machine-gunners  to  fight  to  the  death.  Knowing 
from  past  experience  that  these  would  be  overcome 
by  our  hammering  tactics,  he  was  prepared  to  keep 
on  putting  in  reserves  for  counter-attacks  to  answer 
our  attacks.  Therefore  Loges  Wood  was  to  become 
a  cockpit. 

The  problem  of  how  to  attack  it  was  baffling.  Of 
course,  encircling  was  the  obvious  method;  but  this 
meant  a  longer  exposure  of  the  men  in  the  open, 
while  as  they  swung  in  toward  the  wood  they  would 
have  cross-fire  from  the  adjoining  positions  into  their 
backs.  The  troops  that  had  reached  the  edge  of 
the  wood  drove  halfway  through  on  the  morning 
of  the  17th,  but  were  withdrawn  to  make  an  attack 
from  the  west.  The  reserves  sent  to  hold  the  line 
they  had  gained  had  a  rough  and  tumble  with  a 
German  counter-attack,  and  had  to  yield  a  hundred 
yards.  The  attack  from  the  west  under  the  flank- 
ing fire  of  Hill  180  managed  to  dig  in  and  hold  on 
the  west  side  of  the  wood,  level  with  the  line  in  the 
wood.  This  was  progress;  but  it  was  progress  at 
a  terrible  cost.  The  position  was  too  murderous, 
however  thoroughly  the  men  dug,  to  be  maintained. 
The  Lightnings  must  either  go  forward  or  back, 
or  be  massacred  in  their  fox-holes. 

On  the  morning  of  the  1 8th  the  support  battalions 
passed  through  the  front  line,  and,  rushing  and  out- 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  549 

flanking  machine-gun  nests,  in  a  fight  that  became  a 
scramble  of  units,  each  clearing  its  way  as  fast  as 
it  could,  numbers  of  our  men  broke  through  to  the 
northern  edge  of  the  wood.  All  the  while  the  Ger- 
mans, instead  of  holding  fast  to  their  positions,  were 
acting  on  the  offensive  at  every  opportunity,  infil- 
trating down  the  ravines,  as  they  tried  to  creep 
around  isolated  parties,  and  again  charging  them. 
No  commander  could  direct  his  troops  under  such 
conditions.  It  was  a  fight  between  individuals  and 
groups  acting  as  their  own  generals,  of  .German  vet- 
erans, with  four  years'  experience  in  this  kind  of 
fighting,  against  the  resourceful  Lightnings.  His 
artillery  gassing  the  southern  edge  of  the  wood  to 
keep  back  our  reserves,  the  enemy  kept  forcing  in 
more  reserves  in  his  counter-attacks,  which  gained 
weight  and  system  until  they  forced  our  survivors, 
by  ghastly  losses,  to  retire  to  their  starting  point. 

Thus  far  the  Germans  were  still  holding  the 
escarpment  and  citadel  and  the  hills  at  the  edge  of 
the  Bourgogne  Wood,  in  line  with  the  southern  edge 
of  the  Loges  Wood,  and  well  south  of  its  northern 
edge,  while  the  Loges  farm,  between  Grandpre  and 
the  Loges  Wood,  was  an  outpost  of  enfilade  fire  at 
close  quarters.  We  know  how  in  its  night  attack  just 
before  dawn,  though  it  failed  to  take  the  citadel, 
the  left  brigade  took  and  held  Loges  farm.  The 
right  brigade  was  to  move  at  the  same  time  on  the 


550  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

wood.  Though  our  artillery  had  tried  to  smash  the 
nests,  its  shells  had  been  unsuccessful  among  the 
trees,  and  when  a  frontal  advance  was  attempted, 
it  met  heavier  machine-gun  fire  than  hitherto.  At 
the  same  time  we  attacked  the  wood  from  another 
direction,  trying  for  the  eastern  edge.  The  Ger- 
mans had  the  wood  encircled  with  machine-guns, 
however.  Our  charge,  as  it  turned  in  its  swinging 
movement,  met  their  fire  in  face,  and  received 
machine-gun  fire  in  flank  and  rear  from  the  village 
and  high  ground  around  the  village  of  Champi- 
gneulle.  Driven  back  to  its  starting  point,  it  closed 
up  its  gaps  and  charged  again  under  this  cross-fire 
of  machine-guns  and  a  deluge  of  gas  and  high- 
explosive  shells  which  shattered  it. 

The  brigade  had  used  up  all  its  reserves;  the  divi- 
sion had  none  available;  Corps  could  send  none. 
By  this  time  our  divisions  in  the  center  had  gained 
the  Kriemhilde,  and  were  consolidating  their  gains, 
and,  therefore,  events  on  other  parts  of  the  front 
had  their  influence  in  a  Corps  order  to  withdraw  to 
the  Grandpre-Saint-Juvin  road.  When  the  exhausted 
men  in  the  gas-saturated  Loges  Wood  were  told  that 
they  were  to  retreat,  they  complained.  They  might 
be  staggering  with  fatigue,  and  half-suffocated  from 
wearing  their  gas  masks,  but  they  had  been  fighting 
in  hot  blood  at  close  quarters  for  the  wood.  They 
did  not  want  to  yield  to  their  adversary.    They  were 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  551 

critical  of  the  command  which  compelled  them  to 
retrace  their  steps  in  the  darkness,  which  was  done 
in  good  order,  across  the  levels  spattered  with  the 
blood  of  their  comrades  who  had  breasted  the 
machine-gun  lire. 

Every  bullet  and  shell  which  the  men  of  either  bri- 
gade of  the  78th  had  received  was  one  less  fired  at 
the  heroic  42nd  in  its  struggle  for  the  mastery  of 
the  treacherous  slopes  and  the  wire  and  trenches 
of  the  stronghold  of  the  Chatillon  ridge.  Their 
ferocious  attacks,  made  in  the  hope  of  gains  which 
the  Army  knew  were  impossible,  had  served  another 
purpose  in  convincing  the  Germans  that  our  final 
drive  would  concentrate  on  this  flank  instead  of  on 
the  Barricourt  ridge  to  the  east  of  the  whale-back. 
In  this  final  drive  the  78th,  after  hard  fighting,  was 
to  enjoy  its  retribution;  for  it  took  Loges  Wood, 
and  afterward  knew  the  joy  of  stretching  its  legs  in 
rapid  pursuit  for  twelve  miles.  Its  casualties  were 
5,234  for  all  of  its  operations. 

While  we  are  following  the  careers  of  the  divi- 
sions before  the  attack  of  November  1st,  we  must 
not  forget  that  the  82nd  was  still  in  line  on  the  right 
of  the  78th.  It  had  reached  the  Kriemhilde  on 
October  nth,  and  then  in  the  general  attack  of  the 
14th  penetrated  the  Kriemhilde,  where  it  bends  west 
from  the  Chatillon  ridge,  and  it  had  taken  Hill  182 
and  the  other  heights  to  the  north  and  northeast 


552  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

which  commanded  the  defenses  of  Saint-Juvin.  As 
the  result  of  these  actions  of  determined  initiative 
and  heroic  sacrifice,  one  regiment  had  12  officers 
and  332  men  fit  for  duty;  another  regimental  com- 
mander reported  that  eighty  per  cent  of  his  sur- 
vivors were  unfit  for  duty,  and  that  the  other  twenty 
per  cent  ought  to  be  on  the  sick  list.  However, 
they  could  be  depended  upon  until  they  swooned. 
The  effective  rifle  strength  of  the  division  was  4,300, 
or  less  than  a  third  of  the  normal  total  for  a  division. 
Yet  it  attacked  in  support  of  the  78th's  effort  against 
Loges  Wood.  Then  it  settled  down  to  holding  its 
lines  and  patrolling. 

Provident  General  Duncan  saved  his  exhausted 
men  from  a  part  of  the  strain  by  skillful  front-line 
reliefs  on  alternate  nights.  As  the  All-Americas 
might  not  go  into  rest  as  a  division,  he  established 
a  rest  camp  of  his  own,  where  exhausted,  slightly 
gassed,  wounded,  and  sick  men  had  clean  clothing, 
baths,  and  plenty  of  hot  food,  which  rehabilitated 
them  into  "  effectives  " ;  and  this  enabled  him  to  keep 
the  82nd  in  line  until  the  night  of  October  31st, 
when  the  exhaustion  of  its  memorable  service  in  the 
Aire  trough  was  to  rob  it  of  the  thrill  of  pursuing 
the  enemy  to  the  Meuse,  which  the  now  rested  77th 
and  80th,  taking  its  place,  were  to  know.  It  had 
taken  900  prisoners,  and  paid  for  its  success  with 
6,764  casualties. 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  553 

So  much  for  the  left  flank.  We  have  bidden 
farewell  to  the  Aire  valley,  whose  trough  and  gap 
were  now  behind  us;  but  we  were  not  to  be  through 
with  the  Meuse  until  the  day  of  the  armistice.  I  ap- 
proach no  part  of  our  fighting  in  France  with  a 
greater  sense  of  incapability  than  the  battle  east  of 
the  Meuse — a  separate  battle,  so  influential  in  the 
fortunes  of  the  main  battle,  which  has  never  received 
its  share  of  credit.  Here  every  feature  of  the  main 
battle  was  repeated  in  a  confined  arena  which  re- 
called to  me  the  assaults  on  Port  Arthur.  I  have 
already  described  the  early  operations  of  the  29th 
and  33rd  in  driving  the  wedge,  which  we  hoped 
would  relieve  our  Third  Corps  from  long-range 
flanking  fire  to  which  it  could  not  respond;  and  how 
they  had  been  checked  in  the  quixotic  mission  of  an 
immediate  conquest  of  the  Borne  de  Cornouiller,  or 
Hill  378. 

As  we  know,  the  Borne,  about  three  miles  from 
the  Meuse,  was  the  supreme  height  of  the  eastern 
valley  wall.  Southward  in  the  direction  of  the  attack 
it  sloped  down  into  the  steep-walled  ravine  of  the 
Vaux  de  Mille  Mais,  whose  eastern  end  gave  into 
a  series  of  ridges  rising  to  the  summit  of  Hill  370, 
protecting  the  Grande  Montagne  Wood  in  front  as 
it  protected  378  in  flank  by  the  Grande  Montagne 
Wood  and  the  famous  Molleville  farm.  Thence  an 
encircling  ridge  turning  southward  toward  the  Ver- 


554  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

dun  forts  formed  the  rim  of  a  bowl.  Had  the  Ger- 
man Army,  as  planned,  withdrawn  to  the  Meuse 
line,  these  hills  would  have  been  to  their  defense 
what  the  hills  of  Verdun  were  to  the  French  defense 
in  the  battle  of  19 16. 

Once  the  heights  were  taken,  except  for  a  series 
of  detached  hills,  the  way  was  open  to  the  plain  of 
the  Woevre  and  to  Germany.  Back  of  them  and 
on  their  reverse  slopes  the  Germans  had  built  bar- 
racks for  their  men,  and  assembled  their  material 
for  the  great  Verdun  offensive.  On  the  crests  and 
the  near  slopes  they  had  built  concrete  pill-boxes  at 
critical  points,  and  arranged  a  system  of  defense  in 
the  Verdun  days,  when  they  had  learned  by  expe- 
rience the  tactical  value  of  every  square  rod  of 
ground.  The  approach  from  the  bottom  of  the  bowl 
— which  is  a  rough  description — to  the  rim  was  cov- 
ered by  many  smaller  interlocking  and  wooded  hills 
and  ridges  cut  by  ravines.  There  was  no  ravine,  it 
seemed,  no  part  of  this  pit  which  was  not  visible  to 
observers  from  some  one  of  the  heights.  The  opera- 
tion of  the  French  Corps,  under  which  our  divisions 
operated,  must  be  fan-shaped,  sweeping  up  the  walls 
of  the  bowl,  as  a  wedge  at  any  given  point  would 
have  meant  annihilation.  The  approach  to  the  bowl 
for  our  troops  was  along  a  road  through  a  valley, 
which  was  as  warranted  in  receiving  its  name  as 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  555 

any  Death  Valley  in  the  war.  On  the  French  side 
of  the  old  trench  line  this  ran  through  an  area  of 
villages  in  utter  ruin  from  the  bombardments  of  the 
Verdun  battle,  then  through  Samogneux  and  more 
ruins,  woods,  and  fields  of  shell-craters  into  the  val- 
ley of  the  bowl  itself. 

For  five  or  six  miles,  then,  stretched  an  area  of 
desolation  without  any  billeting  places  where  troops 
could  rest,  except  a  few  rat-infested  and  odorous, 
moist  dugouts  and  cellars,  roofed  by  the  debris  of 
villages.  The  young  soldier  who  was  going  under 
fire  for  the  first  time,  as  he  marched  forward  past 
that  grayish,  mottled,  hideous  landscape,  might  see 
the  physical  results  of  war  upon  earth,  trees,  and 
houses.  When  he  came  into  Death  Valley,  he  was 
to  know  its  effects  upon  men.  For  two  or  three 
miles  the  road  was  always  under  shell-fire.  By  day 
visible  to  the  enemy's  observers,  by  night  his  gun- 
ners could  be  sure  that  guns  registered  upon  it,  if 
they  fired  into  the  darkness,  would  find  a  target  on 
its  congested  reaches.  It  was  inadequate  to  the 
traffic  of  the  divisions  engaged.  Troops  marching 
into  battle  must  run  its  deadly  gamut  before  they 
could  deploy.  It  was  the  neck  of  the  fan-shaped 
funnel  of  the  battle-line.  Transport  was  halted  by 
shell-torn  cars  and  motor-trucks  and  dead  horses 
until  they  were  removed,  and  by  fresh  craters  from 


556  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

large  calibers  until  they  were  refilled.  There  was 
no  rest  for  the  engineers;  all  the  branches  which 
were  not  ordinarily  in  the  front  line  knew  what  it 
was  to  be  under  fire. 

The  Illinois  men  of  the  33rd,  on  the  left,  after 
they  had  crossed  the  river  and  reached  the  slopes 
of  the  Borne  de  Cornouiller  on  the  9th,  could  move 
no  farther  on  their  front  until  the  rim  of  the  bowl 
was  taken  on  their  right.  They  stood  off  counter- 
attacks, and  continued  nagging  the  enemy  until  their 
relief  on  October  21st,  forty-three  days  after  they 
had  gone  into  line  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Meuse, 
and  twenty-six  days  since,  in  the  attack  of  September 
26th,  they  had  taken  Forges  Wood  in  their  brilliant 
swinging  maneuver  which  had  been  followed  by  their 
skillful  bridging  and  crossing  of  the  river.  Now  the 
division  was  to  go  to  the  muddy  and  active  Saint- 
Mihiel  sector  for  a  "  rest,"  relieving  the  79th,  which 
had  had  its  "  rest  "  and  was  to  return  for  a  part  in 
the  last  stages  of  the  battle.  Even  the  much  traveled, 
enduring,  industrious,  and  self-reliant  infantry  of  the 
33rd  had  not  had  such  a  varied  experience  as  the 
artillery  brigade,  which  I  may  mention  as  a  further 
illustration  of  how  our  units  were  moved  here  and 
there.  It  had  been  attached  in  turn  to  the  89th  Divi- 
sion, the  1st  Division,  the  Ninth  French  Corps,  the 
91st  Division,  the  32nd  Division,  the  Army  artillery, 
and  finally  to  the   89th   Division  for  the  drive  of 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  557 

November  1st,  without  ever  once  having  served  with 
its  own  division. 

While  the  33rd  had  been  maintaining  its  ground, 
under  orders  to  attempt  no  advance,  in  the  east  of 
the  Meuse  battle,  the  Blue  and  Grey  29th,  its  regi- 
ments intermixed  at  times  with  French  regiments, 
had  been  forcing  the  action  among  the  ravines  and 
woods  of  the  Molleville  farm  region  against  the 
same  kind  of  offensive  tactics  that  the  Germans  were 
using  in  the  Loges  Wood,  and  for  an  equally  impor- 
tant object  in  relation  to  the  plan  of  our  operations 
as  a  whole.  All  parts  of  its  front  line  and  its  sup- 
port positions  were  being  continually  gassed.  The 
frequent  shifting  of  its  units  in  relation  to  the 
French,  in  an  effort  to  find  some  system  of  making 
progress  up  the  walls  of  the  rim,  were  additional 
vexation  in  trying  to  keep  organization  in  hand  over 
such  difficult  ground,  under  such  persistent  and 
varied  fire  against  the  veteran  Prussians  and 
Wurtembergers,  who  were  quick  to  make  the  most 
of  every  opening  offered  them. 

A  branch  of  the  Death  Valley  road,  the  Crepion 
road,  runs  up  the  eastern  slope  of  the  bowl.  The 
point  where  it  passes  over  the  rim  was  most  vital. 
From  a  rounded  ridge  on  both  sides  of  the  road  for 
a  stretch  between  woods  you  look  down  upon  the 
village  of  Crepion  in  the  foreground  and  receding 
slopes   in   the   distance.      This  point   gained   might 


558  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

flank  the  Etraye  Wood  positions,  the  Grande  Mon- 
tagne,  and  eventually  Hill  378,  the  Borne  de  Cor- 
nouiller  itself. 

Commanding  the  southern  side  of  the  road  and  ap- 
proaches to  the  summit  was  Ormont  Wood,  which 
rose  to  the  crest  of  a  very  high  hill,  360,  only 
eighteen  feet  lower  than  the  Borne,  which  was  de- 
fended by  pill-boxes.  On  the  other  side  of  the  road 
were  the  Reine  and  Chenes  woods.  Beyond  these 
was  the  Belleu  Wood,  on  the  same  side  of  the  road. 
Belleu  and  Ormont  were  key  points.  Belleu  was  to 
have  as  bad  as  name  as  Belleau  Wood  in  the 
Chateau-Thierry  operations. 

On  October  12th  the  Blues  and  Greys  of  the  29th, 
cooperating  with  the  French,  undertook  in  an  en- 
circling movement,  which  was  complex  in  its  detail, 
to  take  the  woods  on  both  sides  of  the  roads.  This 
aroused  all  the  spleen  of  the  German  artillery.  It 
drew  violent  counter-attacks  from  the  German  in- 
fantry, continued  in  two  days  of  in  and  out  fighting. 
Successive  charges  reached  the  edges  of  Ormont. 
There  under  a  tempest  of  artillery  fire  they  looked 
up  the  slope  through  the  thickets  toward  the  summit 
of  360,  where  the  machine-guns  were  emitting  too 
murderous  a  plunging  fire  to  permit  them  either  to 
advance  or  to  hold  all  the  ground  they  had  gained. 
On  the  north  side  of  the  road  Reine  Wood  and  a 
part  of  Chenes  Wood  were  taken  against  counter- 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  559 

attacks.  This  was  encouraging.  Though  it  did  not 
seem  to  make  the  capture  of  Ormont  easier,  it 
opened  the  way  for  an  attack  on  the  15th  toward 
Molleville  farm  on  the  left  and  Grande  Montagne 
on  the  right.  Much  ground  was  gained  on  the  left, 
and  some  on  the  right,  where  the  fire  from  the 
Etraye  ridge  stopped  the  advance. 

We  were  slowly  working  our  way  toward  the  rim, 
using  each  bit  of  woods  or  ridge  which  we  won  as 
a  lever  for  winning  another.  All  the  while  we  were 
an  interior  line,  attacking  up  a  gallery  against  an 
exterior  line  whose  ends  could  interlock  their  cross- 
fire. On  the  1 6th,  by  dint  of  the  sheer  pluck  of  units 
dodging  artillery  concentrations  and  zones  of 
machine-gun  fire,  and  wearing  down  machine-gun 
nests,  further  progress  was  made  on  the  Grande 
Montagne.  The  29th,  always  under  shell-fire  and 
gas,  had  been  attacking  and  resisting  counter- 
attacks for  eight  days.  It  was  not  yet  "  expended  " 
by  any  means;  but  it  was  glad  to  find  that  another 
American  division  was  coming  into  the  arena  to 
relieve  some  of  its  own  as  well  as  French  ele- 
ments. 

Had  we  any  division  whose  veterans  might 
feel,  as  the  result  of  their  experience,  that  they 
were  familiar  with  all  kinds  of  warfare,  it  was 
the  26th,  the  "  Yankee  "  Division,  National  Guard 
of  New  England.     As  I  have  mentioned  in  my  first 


560  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

book,  the  Yankees  had  learned  not  to  expect  a  sine- 
cure. Assignments  which  meant  victory  with  theat- 
rical ease  never  came  to  them.  If  four  divisions  were 
to  draw  lots  for  four  places  in  line,  they  took  it  for 
granted  that  the  worst  would  go  to  the  26th,  which 
had  become  expert  in  gripping  the  rough  end  of  a 
stick.  The  second  division  to  arrive  in  France,  the 
26th  was  put  into  trenches,  after  a  short  period  of 
training,  in  the  ugly  Chemin  des  Dames  region, 
away  from  the  American  sector.  From  there  it  was 
sent  direct  into  the  mire  of  the  Toul  sector  under  the 
guns  of  Mont  Sec,  where  it  resisted  the  powerful 
thrust  of  German  shock  troops  at  Seicheprey.  The 
length  of  time  it  remained  in  the  Toul  sector,  and 
the  length  of  the  line  it  held  there,  might  well  have 
turned  it  into  a  division  of  mud  wallowers;  but  it 
was  able,  on  the  contrary,  to  make  some  offensive 
thrusts  of  its  own,  and  only  longed  for  the  time 
when  it  might  have  something  like  decent  ground 
for  an  attack.  From  Toul  it  went  to  relieve  the 
Marines  and  Regulars  of  the  2nd  in  the  violent  Pas- 
Fini  sector  on  the  Chateau-Thierry  road,  where, 
after  more  than  two  weeks  in  line,  instead  of  having 
the  period  of  rest  and  reorganization  given  to  divi- 
sions before  a  big  attack,  it  drove  through  to  Epieds 
in  the  counter-offensive.  Then  at  Saint-Mihiel, 
where  it  was  with  the  French  on  the  western  side  of 
the  salient,  by  rapid  marching  it  swung  across  to 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  s6r 

Vigneulles  to  meet  the  veteran  ist  in  closing  the 
salient. 

If  there  were  any  replacements  in  the  26th  who 
felt  apprehension  as  they  came  up  Death  Valley, 
the  older  Yankees,  in  the  name  of  all  the  mud,  shells, 
gas,  machine-gun  fire,  and  hardships  they  had  en- 
dured, soon  gave  them  the  heart  of  veteran  com- 
radeship by  their  example.  Saint-Mihiel  had  been 
revenge  for  them.  It  had  set  a  sharper  edge  on 
their  spirits.  Artillery  and  all  the  other  units  having 
long  served  together,  the  Yankees  were  to  be  "  ex- 
pended "  as  other  veteran  divisions  had  been  for  a 
great  occasion  in  the  battle — an  occasion  in  keeping 
with  their  tough  experience.  It  was  not  for  them  to 
have  the  straight  problem  of  charging  a  trench  sys- 
tem, but  to  maneuver  in  and  out  of  these  ravines  and 
woods,  facing  this  way  and  that  against  appalling 
difficulties.  Maine  forests,  Green  Mountains,  White 
Mountains,  little  Rhode  Island,  and  Massachusetts 
and  Connecticut  had  traditions  in  their  history  in 
the  background  of  the  fresh  traditions  the  Yankees 
had  won  in  France.  With  the  Blue  and  Greys  al- 
ready in,  and  the  79th  coming,  the  east  of  the 
Meuse  battle  became  somewhat  of  a  family  affair 
of  the  original  colonies.  The  French  had  great  re- 
spect for  the  26th.  Much  was  expected  of  it,  and 
it  was  to  do  much. 

It  went  to  the  attack  immediately  on  the  morning 


562  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

of  the  23rd.  On  the  left  it  cooperated  with  the 
29th,  which,  feeling  rejuvenated  in  the  presence  of 
Americans  on  its  flank,  concentrated  its  remaining 
effectives  for  an  ambitious  effort  which  carried  the 
Americans  through  to  the  Etraye  ridge,  and  even 
to  the  important  Pylone,  or  observatory,  before  the 
advance  elements  were  stopped.  This  was  the  high 
watermark  for  the  Blue  and  Grey,  splendidly  won. 
Without  trying  to  follow  the  detail  of  the  maneuver, 
the  26th,  as  soon  as  it  was  known  that  its  Etraye 
ridge  attack  was  succeeding,  put  in  a  reserve  bat- 
talion and  rushed  for  the  Belleu,  that  wood  on  the 
east  of  the  Crepion  road,  just  short  of  the  vital  point 
on  the  rim  that  I  have  mentioned.  In  the  impetuos- 
ity of  new  troops  in  their  first  battle,  and  the  spryness 
and  wisdom  of  veterans,  this  battalion  swept  over 
the  machine-guns  and  through  the  wood,  which  the 
29th  had  already  entered,  to  meet  a  savage 
reception. 

This  was  shaking  the  whole  plan  of  German  de- 
fense. It  was  an  insulting  slap  in  the  face  to  German 
tactics.  Just  over  the  crest  beyond  Belleu,  as  I  have 
already  mentioned,  the  slope  ran  down  to  the  plain 
of  the  Woevre.  The  German  had  no  shell-fire  to 
spare  now  for  the  other  bank  of  the  Meuse.  Bat- 
teries whose  fire  had  been  the  curse  of  the  Third 
Corps  swung  round  in  concentration  on  that  exposed 
patch  of  woods.     The  machine-gunners  in  the  pill- 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  563 

boxes  and  log-covered  redoubts  were  reinforced  by- 
others.  It  was  a  wonderful  thing  to  have  gone 
through  Belleu  Wood;  but  in  order  to  have  held, 
the  Yankees  would  have  needed  something  less  per- 
meable to  bullets  and  shell-fragments,  and  subject  to 
gas,  than  a  "  stern  and  rock-bound  coast  "  deter- 
mination. The  battalion  had  to  withdraw  from  the 
wood  during  the  night,  which  was  illumined  by  a  fury 
of  bursting  shells. 

The  Yankees  were  now  fairly  warmed  to  their 
task.  On  the  24th  they  fought  all  day  for  Belleu 
Wood  and  Hill  360  in  the  Ormont  Wood.  A 
cleverly  arranged  smoke-screen  protected  their  first 
entry  into  Belleu,  when  they  advanced  five  hundred 
yards.  The  Germans  knew  well  how  to  fight  in  that 
wood.  They  could  draw  back  from  their  advanced 
line  of  fox-holes  to  their  strong  shell-proof  emplace- 
ments, and  call  for  an  artillery  barrage  to  blast  our 
charge.  Then  they  could  gather  for  a  counter-attack. 
Four  times  that  day  they  rushed  the  Yankees  under 
the  support  of  their  concentrations  of  artillery,  which 
prevented  our  reinforcements  coming  up,  and  the 
fourth  time  they  drove  out  our  survivors.  Attack 
again !  New  England  would  not  accept  the  rebuff 
from  Prussia.  At  2.30  the  next  morning  the 
Yankees  charged  the  wood  in  darkness  and  rain, 
and  they  went  through  it,  too. 

There  was  no  use  of  our  artillery  trying  to  crush 


564 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


the  concrete  pill-boxes  defending  the  Ormont  height 
on  the  other  side  of  the  road.  They  were  invulner- 
able to  shells,  for  the  Yankees  were  facing,  in  most 
exposed  down-hill  positions,  the  latest  fashion  in 
mobile  tactics  in  command  of  well-tested  defenses 
on  high  ground.  Trench-mortar  fire  in  addition  to 
machine-gun  fire  and  shells  shattered  the  two  bat- 
talions which  tried  by  all  the  suppleness  of  veteran 
tactics  to  reach  Hill  360  on  the  23rd.  The  next 
morning,  after  the  usual  night  of  shell-fire  and  suf- 
fering from  cold  on  the  wet  ground,  another  attack 
did  reach  the  hill,  and  fought  in  and  out  around  it 
and  in  the  woods,  but  could  not  hold  it  against  the 
plunging  fire  of  unassailable  pill-boxes. 

On  October  24th  a  new  commander,  Brigadier- 
General  Frank  E.  Bamford,  who  was  trained  in  the 
school  of  the  1st,  came  to  the  26th.  Some  people 
thought  that  our  army  staff  was  not  in  very  intimate 
touch  with  the  situation  in  the  bowl.  Preoccupied 
with  the  main  battle,  it  was  harassed  by  the  flanking 
fire  from  the  heights  east  of  the  Meuse.  It  wanted 
possession  of  these  heights  before  starting  the  next 
general  attack.  A  veteran  division  had  been  sent  to 
take  them.  Evidently  harder  driving  was  required 
from  Division  Headquarters  of  the  26th. 

•'  Go  through!  "  Individuals  did  not  count;  suc- 
cess alone  counted.  Officers  had  been  relieved  right 
and  left  for  failing  to  succeed.     "Go  through!  " 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  565 

Other  heights  had  been  taken:  why  not  these?  Per- 
haps someone  had  overlooked  the  fact  that  while 
the  German  army  retained  anything  like  cohesion  or 
any  dependable  troops,  its  command  would  not  yield 
this  Gibraltar  in  covering  its  retreat  toward  Ger- 
many after  it  was  out  of  Sedan  and  Mezieres,  and 
withdrawn  from  the  whale-back;  and  this  was  all 
the  more  reason  for  our  desiring  Gibraltar.  The 
relief  of  other  divisional  commanders  created  noth- 
ing approaching  the  stir  made  by  that  of  Major- 
General  Clarence  R.  Edwards. 

Well-known  before  the  war  as  Chief  of  the  In- 
sular Bureau,  possessing  characteristics  that  were 
bound  to  attract  attention,  he  had  had  command  of 
the  26th  from  its  organization.  He  went  about 
much  among  his  men.  They  all  knew  his  tall  figure. 
They  and  the  line  officers  were  bitter  over  losing 
him.  If  there  had  been  a  vote  of  the  soldiers  of 
the  division  on  the  question  of  recalling  him,  it 
would  have  been  almost  unanimous  in  his  favor. 
The  staff  seemed  to  think  that  he  was  too  kind  to 
officers  of  a  type  which  other  division  commanders 
relieved;  that  the  success  of  the  division  had  been 
due  to  the  fine  material  in  the  ranks,  which  needed 
better  direction;  and  finally  that  his  long  service  had 
broken  him  down  to  a  point  where  he  had  lost  his 
grip  on  his  organization.  In  answer,  his  friends 
said  that  he  had  made  the  division  out  of  the  nucleus 


566  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

of  many  National  Guard  units  and  replacements.  He 
had  given  it  its  original  spirit  of  corps,  and  kept  up 
its  spirits  under  handicaps  which  would  have  de- 
moralized many  divisions. 

In  the  first  two  days  the  26th  had  suffered  2,000 
casualties.  On  the  27th  they  were  sent  into  one  of 
those  ambitious  attacks  which  look  well  on  paper. 
To  the  right  of  Hill  360,  which  of  course  was  on  the 
rim,  was  a  valley,  and  beyond  that  on  higher  ground 
the  Moirey  Wood,  continuing  the  rim.  Relying  on 
veteran  experience  to  carry  out  this  daring  maneuver, 
they  were  to  swing  around  Hill  360,  and  into  the 
valley,  and  take  Moirey  Wood.  Such  encircling 
movements  had  been  carried  out  before;  but  their 
success  had  been  dependent  upon  the  relative 
strength  of  the  positions  to  be  encircled  and  of  the 
forces  occupying  them,  not  to  mention  the  volume  of 
all  kinds  of  fire  on  the  flanks  of  the  attack.  This 
attack  invited  the  reception  that  it  met  no  less  than 
a  man  who  jumps  into  a  rattlesnake's  nest.  The 
German  army  might  be  staggering  to  defeat,  but 
east  of  the  Meuse  the  German  units  were  not  yet  in 
the  mood  to  turn  their  backs  to  the  heights,  and  re- 
tire to  the  plain.  With  a  wonderful  accuracy  and 
system  they  poured  the  intensest  concentration  of 
artillery  fire  that  even  the  bowl  had  known.  All 
the  guns  on  all  the  heights  which  could  swing  around 
upon  any  part  of  the  bowl  seemed  to  have  only  one 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  567 

target  for  shells  of  all  calibers,  mixed  with  gas, 
which  is  so  hard  on  men  who  are  clambering  over 
slippery  ground  in  violent  physical  effort.  Units 
could  not  see  one  another  from  the  smoke  of  the 
bursts,  tearing  gaps  in  the  line,  which  was  at  the 
same  time  ripped  by  machine-gun  fire  from  the  pill- 
boxes. Every  step  forward  meant  more  machine- 
gun  fire  in  flank,  and  more  of  it  in  rear,  without  any 
diminution  of  the  volume  in  front.  It  was  not  in 
human  flesh  to  "  go  through  ";  and  there  was  noth- 
ing more  to  be  said  on  the  subject. 

At  the  same  time,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Crepion 
road  the  26th  had  sought  to  drive  through  Belleu 
Wood  and  over  the  ridge.  If  both  attacks  had  suc- 
ceeded, and  could  have  held  the  ground  gained,  we 
might  have  won  the  battle ;  but  we  could  not  have 
held  it  under  the  artillery  concentrations  which  the 
Germans  were  able  to  deliver,  unless  each  man  had 
a  shell-proof  pill-box  of  the  weight  of  a  trench  hel- 
met— an  invention  which  would  have  ended  the  war 
before  we  ceased  to  be  neutral. 

We  were  not  in  full  possession  of  Belleu  Wood 
yet.  Conditions  there  were  indeed  "  mixed." 
Yankees  and  Germans  were  dug  in  in  fox-holes  in 
the  northern  edges,  at  points  where  either  could 
watch  the  other.  Back  of  the  Germans  were  their 
trenches  on  the  crest,  and  their  interlocking  pill- 
boxes; at  their  command  always  the  infernal  con- 


568  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

centrations  of  artillery  fire  which  could  be  brought 
down  on  a  few  minutes'  notice.  They  still  had  the 
higher  ground;  they  could  slip  back  for  rest  into 
their  bomb-proofs  and  camps  in  the  valley.  Many 
of  our  fox-holes  were  full  of  icy  cold  water,  where 
the  men  had  to  lie — and  did  lie;  for  to  show  their 
heads  was  to  receive  a  blast  of  fire.  But  the  Yan- 
kees, all  the  while  nagging  the  enemy  by  sniping  and 
shell-fire,  held  on  here  and  across  the  road  under 
the  same  conditions.  It  was  out  of  the  question  for 
warm  food  to  reach  the  outposts,  who  received  their 
rations  by  tossing  biscuits  from  one  fox-hole  to 
another. 

On  their  military  maps  the  French  gave  Belleau 
Wood,  which  the  Marines  had  taken  in  the  Chateau- 
Thierry  campaign,  the  name  of  the  Marine  Wood. 
Belleu  Wood  or  Ormont  Wood  might  either  be 
called  the  "  Yankee  "  Wood,  though  the  29th  might 
ask  that  one  be  called  the  "  Blue  and  Grey  "  Wood, 
or  Grande  Montagne  the  "  Blue  and  Grey"  moun- 
tain. After  having  repulsed  counter-attacks  on  pre- 
vious days,  depleted  as  it  was  in  numbers,  the  29th 
supported  the  attack  of  the  26th  through  Belleu 
Wood  in  an  attack  through  Wavrille  Wood,  where 
it  met  irresistible  fire  of  the  same  kind  as  the  26th 
had  against  Hill  360  and  Moirey  Wood. 

The  29th's  three  weeks'  service  in  the  hell's  tor- 
ment of  the  bowl  was  now  over.  In  its  place  came 
the  79th,  National  Army,  which  was  also  from  both 


A  CITADEL  AND  A  BOWL  569 

sides  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  north  and  south 
mingling  in  its  ranks.  We  know  the  79th  of  old 
for  its  rush  down  the  Montfaucon  valley  and  over 
the  slopes  in  the  first  stage  of  the  battle.  The  isola- 
tion of  units  in  slippery  ravines  and  woods,  and  the 
depth  of  the  shelled  area,  required  two  nights  for 
relief.  The  29th's  5,636  casualties  were  balanced 
on  the  bloody  ledger  of  its  record  by  2,300  prisoners. 
This  was  a  remarkable  showing;  testimony  of 
harvest  won  by  bold  reactions  against  counter- 
attacks, of  charges  which  made  a  combing  sweep  in 
their  sturdy  rushes,  even  when  they  had  to  yield  some 
of  the  ground  won.  Man  to  man  the  Blue  and  Greys 
had  given  the  enemy  better  than  he  sent;  but  not  in 
other  respects.  They  could  not  answer  his  artillery 
shell  for  shell,  or  even  one  shell  to  three. 

My  glimpses  of  the  battle  east  of  the  Meuse 
among  the  Verdun  hills  recalled  the  days  of  the  Ver- 
dun battle,  while  the  French  were  stalling,  with 
powerful  artillery  support,  on  the  muddy  crests  and 
slopes  and  in  the  slippery  ravines.  When  they  re- 
took Douaumont  and  Vaux,  they  had  a  cloud  of 
shell-bursts  rolling  in  front  of  the  charge.  We  were 
going  relatively  naked  to  the  charge.  This  had  been 
our  fortune  in  most  of  our  attacks  in  the  Meuse- 
Argonne,  as  our  part  in  driving  in  our  man-power 
to  hasten  the  end  of  the  war.  There  was  something 
pitiful  about  our  divisional  artillery  in  the  bowl,  try- 
ing to  answer  the  smashing  fire  of  the  outnumbering 


570  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

guns  with  their  long-range  fire  from  the  heights. 
The  artillery  of  the  29th  for  three  weeks  kept  its 
shifts  going  night  and  day,  while  the  veteran  artil- 
lerists of  the  26th  had  problems  in  arranging 
patterns  of  barrages  to  cover  the  infiltrating  attacks 
which  put  new  wrinkles  in  their  experience. 

Of  the  29th's  wounded,  thirty-five  per  cent  were 
gassed.  The  whole  area  of  the  bowl  was  continually 
gassed.  Sickness  was  inevitable  from  lack  of  drink- 
ing water,  warm  food,  and  proper  care.  While  the 
Germans  could  slip  back  to  billets  on  the  reverse 
slopes,  and  to  shell-proof  shelters,  let  it  be  repeated 
that  our  men  had  to  remain  all  the  time  under  the 
nerve-racking  shell-fire  in  the  open,  and  under 
soaking  rains  that  made  every  hole  they  dug  on  the 
lower  levels  a  well.  Some  of  the  woods  which  they 
occupied  were  shelled  until  they  could  see  from  end 
to  end  through  the  remaining  limbless  poles  of  the 
trunks.  The  desolation  of  Delville  and  Trones 
woods  in  the  Somme  battle  were  reproduced;  but  the 
26th  and  the  29th  were  there  to  attack,  and  they 
kept  on  attacking.  The  fire  they  drew  was  a  mighty 
factor  in  the  success  of  our  thrusts  in  the  main  battle 
against  the  whale-back.  It  should  be  enough  for  any 
soldier  to  say  that  he  served  east  of  the  Meuse.  The 
79th  and  the  26th,  which  remained  in  to  the  death, 
were  to  sweep  over  the  rim  into  the  plain,  as  we 
shall  see. 


XXXII 

THE  FINAL  ATTACK 

Stalwart  89th  and  90th — Bantheville  Wood  cleaned  up  by  the 
89th — The  90th  to  the  Freya  system — The  5th,  back  in  line, 
takes  Aincreville  and  Brieulles — America's  two-edged  sword 
— An  aggressive  army  and  the  Fourteen  Points — Would  the 
German  links  snap? — A  last  push — The  military  machine 
running  smoothly — Vigorous  divisions  in  line — Veterans  in 
reserve — "  We  will  go  through." 

The  rest  of  the  picture,  which  had  been  done  in  the 
miniature  of  agonizing  efforts  for  small  gains,  was 
now  to  be  painted  in  bold  strokes  on  a  swiftly  flowing 
canvas.  During  the  last  ten  days  of  October,  after 
the  general  attack  of  the  14th  had  slowed  down, 
our  preparations  for  the  final  attack  included  the 
taking  of  certain  positions  which  would  be  service- 
able as  "  jumping-off  "  places,  and  the  arrival  of  two 
conspicuously  able  National  Army  divisions. 

The  89th  had  been  formed  under  Major-General 
Leonard  Wood,  which  assured  that  the  men  of  clear 
eyes  and  fine  physique,  drafted  from  Kansas  and 
Missouri,  would  be  well  and  sympathetically  trained. 
If  the  division  might  not  have  Wood  at  its  head  in 
France,  it  was  to  have  in  his  successor,  Major-Gen- 

571 


572  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

eral  William  M.  Wright,  a  leader  worthy  to  exem- 
plify the  standards  he  had  established.  All  the  army 
knew  "  Bill  "  Wright,  a  man  of  the  world  as  well 
as  an  all-round  soldier,  practical  and  broad-minded, 
who  faced  a  problem  or  an  enemy  in  all  four-square 
robustness  and  energetic  determination.  In  the 
Saint-Mihiel  drive,  and  afterward  in  the  Saint-Mihiel 
sector,  the  89th  had  fully  met  the  high  expectation 
of  its  old  commander  and  his  admirers. 

His  men  were  as  devoted  to  Major-General  Henry 
T.  Allen,  who  had  formed  the  90th  from  recruits 
and  commanded  it  in  France.  The  six  feet  of  "  Hal  " 
Allen  were  as  straight,  now  that  his  hair  was  gray, 
and  he  was  as  spare  in  body  and  as  youthful  in  spirit 
as  in  the  days  when  he  was  a  lieutenant  of  cavalry, 
or  organized  the  Philippine  Constabulary.  He  too 
was  known  to  all  the  army,  always  "  all  there," 
whether  on  parade  or  in  a  stuffy  dugout,  or  in  any 
group  of  men  at  home  or  abroad.  When  he  went 
among  his  tall  Texans  they  said  that  they  had  a  gen- 
eral who  looked  like  a  general.  Both  Allen  and 
Wright  were  afterward  rewarded  with  corps  com- 
mands for  their  service  in  the  concluding  drive  of 
the  battle. 

As  for  the  spirit  of  the  infantry  of  the  90th  dur- 
ing all  the  battle,  only  three  stragglers  were  reported 
from  the  whole  division.  They  were  from  Texas, 
as  they  were  prompt  to  tell  you.     They  had  shown 


THE  FINAL  ATTACK  573 

in  the  mire  of  the  Saint-Mihiel  salient  that  men  from 
a  very  dry  atmosphere  can  endure  penetrating  humid 
cold  as  well  as  the  hot  sun.  The  sight  of  them,  no 
less  than  of  the  89th  and  other  divisions  from  the 
Middle  West,  was  an  assurance  that  anemia  does 
not  flourish  in  their  native  States.  Neither  the  89th 
nor  the  90th  had  received  enough  replacements  to 
change  their  local  character.  Their  regional  pride 
was  accordingly  almost  as  strong  as  their  divisional 
pride.  Both,  when  they  arrived  in  the  Meuse-Ar- 
gonne,  were  considered  as  "  shock "  divisions,  so 
rapid  had  been  their  progress  in  efficiency  since  they 
had  come  to  France. 

Taking  over  from  the  32nd  on  October  19th,  the 
89th  immediately  proceeded  to  clean  up  the  trouble- 
some Bantheville  Wood.  Though  the  operation  was 
entirely  successful,  it  required  severe  fighting  under 
other  adverse  conditions  than  machine-gun  and  artil- 
lery fire,  which  grew  worse,  the  farther  the  infantry 
advanced.  The  roads  through  the  wood,  which  was 
continually  gassed,  were  impassable.  Stretcher- 
bearers  had  to  wade  in  mud  knee-deep  for  the  mile 
and  a  half  of  its  length  in  bringing  back  the  shiver- 
ing wounded,  and  the  men  stricken  with  influenza. 

When  the  Germans  built  that  excellent  bathing 
and  disinfecting  plant  at  Gesnes,  they  did  the  89th 
a  good  turn.  Taking  care  of  over  four  thousand 
of  our  exhausted  men,  it  was  the  adjutant  of  their 


574  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

fine  physique  in  so  conserving  the  strength  of  the 
division  that  it  was  able,  after  ten  days  of  action 
and  exposure  which  might  well  have  '  expended  ' 
it,  to  fight  its  way  to  the  Meuse  and  across  the 
Meuse  in  the  ten  days  of  advance  from  November 
i  st  until  the  armistice. 

The  90th,  taking  over  on  October  22nd  from  the 
5th  Division  in  that  violent  sector  of  the  Rappes 
Wood  in  front  of  Bantheville,  under  the  cross  artil- 
lery fire  from  the  heights  of  the  whale-back  and 
east  of  the  Meuse,  its  line  joining  the  89th  on  the 
left,  made  a  spring  for  the  village  of  Bantheville 
on  the  23rd,  capturing  and  holding  it.  The  next 
day  it  drove  ahead  until  it  was  up  to  the  Freya 
Stellung,  the  second  line  of  defense  of  the  whale- 
back,  with  a  precision  that  defied  the  enemy's  artil- 
lery and  machine-guns.  The  Freya  was  not  as 
strong  as  the  Kriemhilde,  neither  being  of  course  a 
trench  system  in  the  former  accepted  sense;  but  the 
Freya  had  fragments  of  trenches  and  strong  posi- 
tions for  machine-guns,  linked  together  in  character- 
istic mobile  defense.  Eager  as  the  Texans  were  to 
attack  the  Freya,  it  was  not  in  the  plan  that  they 
should.  They  were  to  dig  in  and  expose  themselves 
as  little  as  possible  to  the  cross  artillery  fire,  and 
"make  medicine"  for  their  part  in  the  general 
attack,  which  would  sweep  over  the  Freya  on  No- 
vember  1st.     The  Germans  tried   several  counter- 


THE  FINAL  ATTACK  575 

attacks;  but  every  one  was  promptly  repulsed  by 
the  accurate  fire  of  the  Texans,  whom  the  deluges 
of  shells  could  not  budge  from  their  positions. 

Meanwhile  the  tried  regulars  of  the  5th  Division, 
which  had  come  into  line  on  the  Meuse  flank  on 
October  27th,  had  a  few  chores  to  do  before  they 
were  to  carry  out  their  brilliant  programme  in  cross- 
ing the  Meuse.  I  use  the  word  chores,  because  the 
Aces,  now  refreshed  and  full  of  "  pep,"  made  their 
successes  appear  to  be  little  more.  We  had  not  yet 
taken  Brieulles  on  the  river  bank,  though  it  had 
been  set  as  a  part  of  the  Army  objective  of  the 
initial  attack  of  September  26th.  For  four  weeks  it 
had  been  whipping  our  flanks  with  its  machine-gun 
fire  and  protecting  enfilading  German  batteries. 
After  having  vigilantly  pushed  forward  aggressive 
patrols,  which  seized  vantage  points,  in  a  rush  in  the 
darkness  on  the  morning  of  the  30th,  the  5th  took 
Aincreville.  That  evening  skirmishers  went  into 
Brieulles,  and  cleared  it  of  the  enemy.  To  a  point 
opposite  Liny,  where  the  river  curved  westward,  we 
had  straightened  out  our  line  on  the  Meuse  bank, 
shortening  our  Third  Corps  front,  which  at  the 
same  time  had  cut  deeper  into  the  flank  of  the 
Barricourt  ridge,  the  final  crest  of  the  whale- 
back. 

This  was  cheerful  news  for  our  Army  command. 
It  was  an  augury  confirming  all  our  information  in 


576  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

the  latter  days  of  October.  The  rapid  advance  of 
the  other  Allied  armies  to  the  west  was  having  a 
pronounced  effect.  Indeed,  during  the  second  stage 
of  the  Meuse-Argonne  battle,  powerful  as  the  Ger- 
man resistance  had  been,  it  was  not  that  of  full  divi- 
sions, as  a  rule,  but  of  elements  of  divisions  hurried 
into  line,  their  officers  sometimes  uncertain  of  the 
identity  of  units  on  their  flanks,  as  they  strove  to 
obey  orders  to  hold  at  any  cost.  An  army,  in  its 
many  units,  is  like  a  series  of  steel  links.  For  over 
four  years  the  German  army  had  presented  a  front 
possessed  of  the  alternate  mobility  of  a  chain  and 
the  rigidity  of  a  steel  wall.  So  rapidly  was  German 
morale  now  deteriorating  that  it  looked  as  if  the 
chain,  worn  by  attrition,  might  snap  in  a  confusion 
of  scattering  links. 

America's  part  in  this  juncture  was  that  of  a  two- 
edged  sword.  One  edge  was  preparing  to  strike 
with  all  our  military  force  against  the  German 
front.  It  is  needless  to  repeat  how  influential  is 
psychologic  suggestion  on  a  soldier's  mood.  Our 
soldiers  were  forbidden  to  speak  of  peace;  all 
thought  of  peace  being  as  resolutely  suppressed  in 
the  military  mind  as  apprehension  of  defeat,  when 
the  German  offensives  in  the  spring  had  seemed  to 
be  threatening  Paris.  The  average  soldier,  being  a 
human  being,  and  particularly  the  veteran  who  had 
survived  many  battles,  if  he  thought  the  end  were 


THE  FINAL  ATTACK  577 

near,  did  not  want  to  be  the  "  last  man  killed  in  the 
war."  The  more  he  had  endured,  the  more  he 
wanted  to  live.  So  we  must  leave  peace  to  the 
peace-makers.  The  war-makers  must  keep  at  war. 
The  harder  we  fought  in  the  days  to  come,  the  bet- 
ter we  served  the  purpose  of  President  Wilson,  the 
Commander-in-Chief. 

The  other  edge  of  our  sword  was  his  Fourteen 
Points.  The  German  soldier  now  knew  that  he 
could  never  undertake  another  offensive.  Hence- 
forth his  back  was  against  the  wall.  A  soldier  who 
submitted  to  the  will  of  his  superiors  in  full  faith 
in  their  promises  of  victory,  a  soldier  who  fought 
peculiarly  for  victory  on  enemy  soil,  found  his  great 
organization,  which  he  had  been  told  was  uncon- 
querable, breaking,  and  himself  yielding  in  disheart- 
ening retreat  the  ground  that  his  sacrifice  had  won. 
He  may  have  thought  that  he  had  fought  in  his 
country's  defense  by  invading  France;  now  he  knew 
that  defense  had  become  a  matter  of  the  defense  of 
his  own  soil.  Would  he  fight  to  the  last  ditch? 
Would  he  resist  on  the  Meuse  as  the  British  had 
at  Ypres,  and  the  French  at  Verdun,  and  the  South 
at  Appomattox?  The  question  was  for  him,  the 
soldier,  to  answer.  It  always  is,  in  every  war. 
Leadership  and  staff  work  can  effect  nothing,  unless 
the  soldiers  are  for  battle.  The  aim  of  all  the 
propaganda  on  both  sides  was  to  promote  the  fight- 


578  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

ing    spirit    of    the    masses    at    home    and    at    the 
front. 

Germany  still  had  millions  of  armed  men,  a  great 
staff  organization,  and  immense  numbers  of  guns 
and  quantities  of  ammunition.  The  organic  disin- 
tegration was  due  to  the  mood  of  the  Kaiser's 
atoms,  his  men.  Strike  a  spark  in  them,  flaming 
into  desperate  common  defense  as  a  people — and 
the  German  army  might  show  as  a  whole  something 
of  the  resistance  to  the  death  of  individual  units  in 
the  Meuse-Argonne.  It  was  all  very  well  to  talk  of 
a  swift  movement  to  Berlin;  but  the  Allied  armies 
were  themselves  becoming  exhausted.  They  were 
running  short  of  fresh  divisions;  they  were  ham- 
pered for  lack  of  transport  and  horses.  An  army 
advances  slowly  against  rearguard  action  alone. 
Between  Berlin  and  the  Allied  soldiers,  who  knew 
the  meaning  of  interlocking  fire  from  machine-guns 
manned  by  small  groups  of  men,  were  Luxemburg, 
the  walls  of  the  Moselle  and  the  Rhine  valleys,  and 
all  the  stretch  of  country  beyond  the  Rhine,  which 
meant  long  lines  of  railroad  communication,  many 
bridges  to  be  built,  and  an  infinite  amount  of  labor. 
If  a  million  German  veterans  decided  that  it  was 
better  to  die  than  to  yield,  though  we  should  go  to 
Berlin,  we  should  have  much  fighting  on  the  way, 
increasing  the  ghastly  cost  in  lives  and  treasure 
which  was  swamping  the  world  in  blood  and  debts. 


THE  FINAL  ATTACK  579 

A  common  view  of  German  character  during  the 
war  had  held  that  once  the  Germans  knew  they 
were  losing,  their  resistance  would  collapse;  that 
they  would  fight  well  only  when  the  odds  were  in 
their  favor.  This  hardly  accorded  with  their  record 
under  Frederick  the  Great.  I  think  that  with  them, 
as  with  all  peoples  and  all  soldiers,  much  depended 
upon  whether  or  not  some  event  or  train  of  events 
should  have  again  aroused  their  passion.  They 
lacked  food;  but  a  people  in  siege  desperation  will 
go  hungry  for  a  long  time. 

It  was  a  solace  to  the  German  soldier's  mind,  a 
tribute  to  his  courage,  for  him  to  think  that  if 
America  had  not  come  into  the  war  he  would  have 
won  it  from  the  other  Allies.  He  had  finished 
Russia  and  Rumania;  he  had  France  and  Britain 
trembling,  when  a  fresh  and  gigantic  antagonist 
appeared  against  him.  His  retreats  had  begun  just 
as  American  troops  were  making  their  force  felt  on 
the  battle  line.  Despite  censorship  of  the  press, 
belittling  our  effort,  despite  the  espionage  of  officers 
over  their  men,  word  traveled  fast  from  German 
soldier  to  soldier.  By  talks  with  others  who  had 
fought,  if  not  by  actual  contact,  every  German 
soldier  knew  with  what  freshness  and  initiative  the 
Americans  fought.  If  we  had  been  slow  in  prepar- 
ing, once  our  enormous  preparations  came  to  a  head 
in  the  immense  numbers  we  were  now  throwing  into 


580  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

battle,  the  effect  was  all  the  more  impressive  upon 
the  German  soldier,  and  through  him  upon  the  Ger- 
man people. 

This  same  America,  which  was  now  attacking 
with  such  increasing  power,  had  made  through  its 
President  the  peace  offer  of  the  Fourteen  Points, 
which  had  followed  his  speeches  and  notes  during 
our  neutrality,  all  to  the  same  effect:  that  America 
— then  considered  weak  and  unmilitary — was  not 
fighting  in  a  war  of  conquest.  The  Fourteen  Points 
guaranteed  Germany  from  the  dismemberment  and 
subjection  which  the  military  caste  had  said  would 
be  her  fate  if  she  ever  yielded  to  the  Allies.  After 
he  awakened  to  his  leaders'  failure  to  give  him  vic- 
tory, the  Fourteen  Points  and  associated  propaganda 
were  infiltrating  into  the  German  soldier's  mind  as 
effectively  as  German  infantry  infiltrated  down  a 
ravine  or  through  a  patch  of  woods.  One  hand  of 
America  driving  a  bayonet  into  his  face,  the  other 
was  offering  him  self-preservation  in  the  rear.  Why 
fight  to  the  last  ditch  when  such  terms  were  offered? 
Three  out  of  four  German  soldiers  were  accepting 
them  in  the  sense  that  they  were  no  longer  fighting 
to  the  death  in  machine-gun  nests.  The  war  was 
over;  they  wanted  to  go  home. 

It  was  these  two  influences  in  the  latter  part  of 
October  and  early  November  which  were  weakening 
the  enemy's  spirit  on  our  front.     Our  conviction  that 


THE  FINAL  ATTACK  581 

this  time  we  would  break  through  waxed  stronger 
every  day.  Our  men  thought  of  the  enemy  as 
groggy;  another  smashing  blow  would  topple  him. 
We,  too,  wanted  to  go  home ;  we  wanted  an  end  of 
the  horror  and  the  hardship,  as  the  days  grew 
colder  and  the  ground  a  moister  bed.  One  supreme 
effort,  and  the  orgy  might  be  finished.  The  second 
stage  of  the  battle  had  already  passed,  in  our 
thoughts.  We  were  entering  a  new  stage,  which 
should  free  us  from  the  grim  routine  of  siege. 
Something  of  the  fervor  of  our  preparations  for  the 
first  stage,  tempered  and  strengthened  by  the  expe- 
rience gained  in  the  second,  was  in  our  preparation 
for  the  third. 

Originally  Marshal  Foch  had  set  the  attack  for 
October  28th;  but  postponement  to  November  1st 
was  found  to  be  better  suited  for  his  plans.  This 
gave  us  time  to  take  Aincreville  and  Brieulles,  to 
bring  up  still  more  material,  and  further  improve 
our  arrangements.  This  time  we  were  to  have 
enough  guns.  More  divisional  artillery  had  come 
from  the  French  foundries  to  the  training  camps, 
whence  the  waiting  gunners  brought  them  to  the 
front.  We  had  an  increase  of  Army  and  Corps  ar- 
tillery, while  Admiral  Plunkett's  bluejackets,  with 
their  long-range  naval  pieces  which  they  wanted  to 
take  up  as  close  to  the  enemy  as  if  they  were  machine- 
guns,  were  cheering  to  the  eye.     Yet  altogether  we 


582  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

were  to  have  only  one  hundred  guns  of  American 
make  in  the  battle;  all  the  rest  were  of  French  make. 
Our  columns  of  ammunition  trucks,  increased  by  the 
recent  arrival  of  large  numbers  from  home,  seemed 
endless.  Great  piles  of  shells  were  rising  beside  the 
roads.  The  artillery  of  the  90th  Division  alone  was 
to  fire  over  68,000  rounds  in  twenty-four  hours  on 
November  1st.  All  the  artillery  of  divisions  in 
reserve  and  in  rest  were  brought  up  to  the  line. 
Artillerymen  could  endure  longer  service  than  the 
infantry.  Those  off  duty  might  steal  some  sleep 
under  shell-fire.  This  time  we  were  to  make  a 
shield  of  shells,  and  a  bridge  of  shells,  too,  for  our 
troops.  Despite  our  deep  concentrations  and  the 
quantity  of  supplies  moving,  there  was  none  of  the 
confusion  of  the  early  days  of  the  battle.  Our  staff 
heads  had  learned  in  a  fierce  school  to  control  traffic. 
The  machine  was  running  comparatively  smoothly — 
no  military  machine  can  ever  run  exactly  so  except 
in  inspired  accounts — equal  to  the  extra  and  fore- 
seen demand  upon  it.  Our  officers  in  the  different 
headquarters  were  making  their  tables  of  barrages 
and  the  dispositions  for  attack  with  the  routine  con- 
fidence of  clerks  balancing  a  ledger.  We  were  no 
longer  new  to  war. 

The  plan  for  November  1st  was  only  carrying  out 
the  final  stage  of  the  first  plan  which  our  ambition 
had  dared:  a  sweep  over  the  last  of  the  crests  of 


THE  FINAL  ATTACK  583 

the  whale-back,  and  down  the  irregular  descents 
toward  the  westward  course  of  the  Meuse  and  the 
Lille-Metz  railway.  On  the  left,  the  French  Fourth 
Army  was  pressing  against  the  western  edge  of  the 
Bourgogne  forest.  Our  left  flank  and  their  right 
flank  were  to  "  scallop  "  the  forest,  while  it  was 
filled  with  gas,  instead  of  accompanying  the  flanking 
movement  by  a  frontal  drive,  as  we  did  in  the 
Argonne. 

Our  National  Army  divisions  had  come  into  their 
own,  the  National  Guard  divisions,  which  in  the  first 
and  second  stages  had  helped  to  pave  the  way  for  a 
glorious  day,  being  in  reserve,  or  "  resting  "  in  that 
muddy  Saint-Mihiel  sector.  In  Dickman's  First 
Corps,  at  the  left,  were  the  78th  Division,  still  in 
line  after  the  taking  of  the  citadel  and  its  ordeal  in 
the  Loges  Wood;  the  77th,  come  into  line  for  a 
second  time,  after  it  had  been  in  camp  in  its  own 
Argonne  Forest;  and  the  peripatetic  80th,  which 
had  swung  round  from  the  Third  Corps,  come  into 
line  for  the  third  time.  Two  divisions  formed 
Summerall's  Fifth  Corps  in  the  center:  the  veteran 
2nd,  which,  after  its  service  in  helping  to  disengage 
Rheims,  was  back  "home"  in  our  army;  and  the 
89th,  which  had  made  Bantheville  Wood  secure  as 
its  "  jumping-off  "  place.  In  Hines'  Third  Corps 
on  the  right  were  the  90th  Division,  which  had 
taken   Bantheville,    and   the    5th,    now   masters   of 


584  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

Brieulles  of  evil  repute  and  of  Aincreville.  Across 
the  river  with  the  French  Second  Colonial  Corps,  as 
an  influential  and  thoroughly  inclusive  part  of  the 
whole  movement,  the  79th  was  preparing  to  start 
from  Molleville  farm  to  storm  the  Borne  de  Cor- 
nouiller,  and  the  26th,  the  only  National  Guard 
division  in  the  front  line,  clinging  to  Belleu  Wood 
and  the  edge  of  Ormont  Wood,  preparatory  to 
rushing  the  eastern  rim  of  the  bowl. 

We  know  all  these  divisions  of  old.  Their  spurs 
had  been  won;  they  had  tasted  what  Lord  Kitchener 
called  the  salt  of  life  in  his  message  to  the  little 
British  expeditionary  force  in  August,  19 14, — if  the 
mud,  the  blood,  the  lice,  the  gas,  the  evisceration  of 
battle  is  to  have  this  name  rather  than  that  of  the 
acid  of  death.  We  know,  too,  the  three  divisions 
in  reserve,  which  had  had  a  longer  experience.  Some 
of  their  survivors  had  been  toughened  to  the  point 
of  pickling  by  the  salt  of  life.  Two  of  them  were 
National  Guard,  and  one  regular — the  old  depend- 
ables  of  the  pioneers.  It  was  good  that  they,  and 
the  26th  and  the  2nd,  too,  among  the  pioneers,  were 
to  be  in  at  the  finish.  Back  of  the  Third  Corps,  in 
reserve  on  the  right,  was  the  32nd,  and  of  the  First 
Corps  on  the  left  was  the  42nd,  both  fit  for  any 
duty  after  the  rest  following  their  smashing  blows 
which  went  through  the  Kriemhilde;  and  back  of 
the    Fifth    Corps    was   the    1st,    which,    with   usual 


THE  FINAL  ATTACK  585 

promptness,  had  trained  in  its  ways  the  replace- 
ments who  filled  the  gaps  of  its  more  than  8,000 
casualties  in  its  October  4th-nth  drive.  It  was  now 
under  command  of  Brigadier-General  Frank  Parker, 
who  was  a  soldier  of  the  school  of  the  1st,  and  as 
knightly  a  young  officer  as  ever  won  promotion  in 
battle. 

I  should  have  said  that  these  three  veteran  divi- 
sions were  to  be  in  at  the  finish  only  in  the  event 
of  the  checking  or  exhaustion  of  one  of  the  divisions 
in  front.  Their  part  was  to  follow  up  the  advance, 
ready  to  spring  into  an  opening.  They  were  a  whip 
from  behind  in  the  Army  policy,  which  meant  this 
time  not  only  to  go  through  the  enemy's  final  defense 
line,  but  to  keep  on  going.  The  42nd  seemed  to 
have  drawn  the  most  favorable  position  for  its  ambi- 
tion, as  the  78th  was  worn  down  by  its  attacks  on 
the  citadel  and  Loges  Wood,  and  might  have  an 
initial  nervous  voltage  to  drive  its  legs,  but  not  the 
reserve  strength  to  remain  long  in  pursuit.  The  ist's 
prospects  seemed  very  dismal.  Do  you  suppose  that 
Kansans  and  Missourians  of  the  89th  were  going 
to  yield  place  to  any  division?  As  for  the  2nd, 
fresh  in  line,  it  was  the  "  best  "  of  the  older  divisions. 
You  may  have  that  on  official  authority  from  its 
headquarters,  and  on  the  informal  authority  of  every 
officer  and  man  of  the  2nd,  and  also  from  every 
transport  horse  or  mule,  if  they  could  have  spoken. 


586  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

The  ist  was  also  the  "best"  division,  as  we  know1 
from  equally  numerous  and  valiant  authorities.  Any- 
one who  cares  to  dispute  either  set  of  authorities, 
lacking,  of  course,  information  to  justify  his  opinion, 
is  left  to  his  fate. 

Was  the  race-horse  2nd  to  allow  the  ist  to  take 
one  rod  of  its  line  of  advance?  Not  while  the  2nd 
had  a  corporal's  guard  able  to  march  and  fight;  not 
unless  the  ist  could  leap-frog  the  2nd  in  aeroplanes. 
The  ist  might  do  police  duty  and  repair  roads  after 
it  was  tired  out  in  trying  to  keep  in  sight  of  the  2nd's 
heels.  Were  the  Texans  of  the  90th,  who  were 
just  becoming  warmed  up  to  the  Argonne  battle,  to 
allow  the  32nd  to  do  anything  but  trail  in  their 
wake?  Was  the  regular  5th,  which  had  taken  a  lien 
on  the  west  bank  of  the  Meuse,  to  accept  assistance 
from  National  Guardsmen,  even  if  they  were  the 
greedy  and  swift  Arrows? 

We  had  in  this  array  of  divisions — to  pass  a  gen- 
eral compliment,  as  they  passed  few  compliments  to 
one  another  because  the  "  bests  "  were  so  numerous 
— infantry  which  thrilled  the  most  stale  of  observers 
with  admiration  apart  from  national  pride.  I  had 
heard  much  of  the  "  trench  look  "  and  the  "  battle 
face,"  which,  as  seen  by  civilians,  sometimes  puzzled 
men  long  at  the  front.  I  saw  it,  as  I  understand  it, 
at  Chateau-Thierry  and  during  the  Meuse-Argonne 
battle;  I  saw  it,  too,  in  the  Ypres  salient  and  at  Ver- 


THE  FINAL  ATTACK  587 

dun.  It  was  sharp-featured,  in  keeping  with  lithe 
muscular  bodies,  with  a  smile  that  possibly  took  its 
character  from  that  "  salt  of  life,"  a  direct  look  in 
the  eye  in  answer  to  a  challenge, — the  face  of  a 
man  who  has  seen  the  flight  of  things  more  dan- 
gerous than  baseballs,  who  knows  grinding  discipline, 
roofless,  fireless  billets  in  midwinter,  and  the  sub- 
mission of  self  to  a  cause  in  the  grimmest  of  team- 
play. 

Our  infantry  were  ready,  resolutely  and  confi- 
dently ready.  All  our  gunners,  there  on  the  slopes, 
in  the  ravines  and  woods,  in  the  midst  of  that  array 
of  guns,  were  ready  to  pour  forth  their  hurricane 
of  shells.  Our  machine-gun  battalions,  our  medical, 
engineer,  and  salvage  units,  our  ammunition  trains, 
our  rolling  kitchens,  were  ready.  General  Maistre, 
who  came  from  Marshal  Foch  to  Fifth  Corps  head- 
quarters the  night  before  the  attack,  asked  if  we 
would  "  go  through." 

"  We  will  go  through,"  Summerall  replied. 

"Do  you  want  to  see  my  plans?"  Summerall 
asked  Pershing. 

"  No.     I  know  them." 

Summerall  went  out  with  him  to  his  car. 

"  Will  you  go  through?  "  Pershing  asked  him. 

"We  will." 

Pershing  put  the  same  all-embracing  question  to 
Hines  and  Dickman,   and  received  the  same   reso- 


588  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

lute  answer.  Corps  commanders  were  only  repeat- 
ing the  messages  of  division,  brigade,  and  battalion 
commanders,  who  were  speaking  the  thought  of  the 
men. 

"We  will  go  through." 


XXXIII 

VICTORY 

A  march  of  victory  in  the  center — Held  on  the  left — But  full  speed 
on  the  second  day — The  89th  stays  in — Veterans  in  leash — 
The  90th  to  the  river  wall — The  5th  pivoting — The  Borne  at 
last  taken  by  the  79th — The  5th  gets  across  the  Meuse — Vary- 
ing resistance  to  the  main  advance — Rainbows  give  way  to 
French  entry  into  Sedan — In  motion  from  Meuse  to  Moselle  on 
the  last  day — Isolated  divisions  in  Flanders — Every  village 
in  France — The  folly  of  war. 

One  who  moved  about  in  the  days  before  and  the 
night  before  the  attack,  from  the  railheads  to  the 
front,  his  vision  embracing  the  whole  panorama, 
no  longer  need  talk  of  what  America  was  going  to 
do  in  the  war.  He  saw  what  America  had  done 
since  September  26th  between  the  ruins  of  the  old 
trench  system  and  the  Kriemhilde  Stellung,  and  he 
knew  that  the  army  which  was  to  spring  into  action 
at  dawn  on  the  morning  of  November  1st  was  the 
greatest  in  our  history. 

When  the  simmering  volcano  of  routine  artillery 
fire  broke  into  eruption  at  3.30,  racking  the  earth 
with  concussions  and  assaulting  the  heavens  with 
blinding  flashes,  as  the  stream  of  shells  from  the 

589 


590  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

larger  caliber  of  the  forest  of  guns  passed  over  the 
streams  from  the  smaller  caliber,  it  seemed  that  all 
the  Germans  in  the  front  line  must  be  mashed  into 
the  earth.  If  the  preliminary  bombardment  left  any- 
alive,  then  that  monstrous  curtain  of  shell-bursts  in 
front  of  the  advancing  infantry,  and  the  trench  mor- 
tar fire,  and  the  sheets  of  machine-gun  bullets  that 
increased  the  strength  of  the  shield,  must  hold  them 
trussed  to  the  earth  until  it  passed  over  them  and 
our  men  were  upon  them. 

So  it  was  with  the  2nd  Division,  where  I  followed 
up  the  advance.  With  the  seeming  facility  with 
which  the  easier  hurdles  are  taken  in  a  steeple-chase, 
the  wave  of  the  2nd  had  swept  over  the  fragmentary 
trenches  of  the  Kriemhilde  system  beyond  Sommer- 
ance,  where  the  great  attacks  of  the  ist  and  the 
82nd  had  died  down,  and  our  line  had  been  little 
changed  by  the  general  attack  of  October  14th, 
which  had  mastered  the  Kriemhilde  in  the  center. 
There  were  occasional  enemy  shell-bursts  in  patches 
of  woods  and  on  obvious  points,  fired  by  German 
guns,  halting  in  retreat  or  before  withdrawal  from 
their  old  positions,  and  occasional  bullets  cracked  by 
from  the  left  in  the  region  of  the  Bourgogne  forest; 
but  all  this  seemed  only  the  venomous  and  hopeless 
spite  of  a  rearguard  action  that  was  breaking  into  a 
rout.  Only  at  long  intervals  did  you  see  a  prone, 
still  figure  in  khaki  on  the  earth;  and  our  wounded 


MAT   .NO.    11 

.DIVISIONS    IN   THE  THIRD  STAGE  OF  THE  MEUSE-ARGONNE 

.BATTLE^  .OCTOBER    SlST-NOVEMBER    111' II. 


VICTORY  591 

were  not  numerous.  German  prisoners  were  being 
rounded  up  from  bushes  and  gullies,  and  in  gray 
files  they  were  crossing  the  fields  to  the  rear,  as  the 
combings  of  a  drive  which  was  moving  as  fast  this 
time  as  the  pencilings  on  the  map  of  high  ambition. 
Admired  by  the  Allies  for  our  speed,  we  were  show- 
ing it  now  in  legs  unlimbered  and  free  of  the  chains 
that  had  encompassed  us  for  over  a  month. 

It  had  ceased  to  be  a  battle  on  the  way  to  Bayon- 
ville-et-Chennery.  It  was  a  march,  a  joyous  march 
of  victory,  more  appealing  than  any  city  parade,  you 
may  be  sure.  Our  guns  and  transport  were  coming 
along  roads  which  were  free  of  any  except  a  rare 
vagrant  shell-burst.  Indeed,  everything  in  the  2nd's 
sector  was  going  according  to  schedule.  It  was  good 
to  be  with  the  2nd,  as  I  had  learned  in  June  and 
July  in  the  Chateau-Thierry  operations.  One 
stopped  and  watched  for  the  figures  ahead  to  appear 
in  their  mobile  swiftness  in  open  spaces,  as  they  came 
out  of  woods  and  ravines.  One  knew  by  instinct 
that  we  were  going  over  the  heights  and  down  the 
apron  this  time.  The  weather  was  with  us,  too. 
After  the  long  period  of  chill  rains  and  hardships,  a 
kindly  sunshine  filtered  through  the  leaden  sky. 
There  had  been  more  thrilling  days  in  the  war, 
thrilling  with  triumph  and  apprehension  for  me : 
when  I  was  in  Brussels,  before  the  German  avalanche 
arrived;  when  I  saw  the  British  battle  fleet  go  out 


592  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

to  sea ;  when  I  saw  the  French  driving  the  Germans 
back  in  the  first  battle  of  the  Marne;  when  I  saw 
the  British  and  French  in  their  retreat  before  the 
German  offensives  of  191 8;  when  I  saw  our  first 
contingent  land  in  France.  But  the  crowning  day- 
was  the  one  which  brought  forth  the  confession  of 
the  German  communique  that  we  had  broken  the 
German  line. 

This  is  not  saying,  though  the  Fifth  Corps  in  the 
center  reached  its  objectives,  except  for  a  few  hun- 
dred yards  at  some  points,  that  everything  in  the 
schedule  went  without  a  hitch  along  the  whole  front. 
Our  movement  was  fan-shaped,  swinging  toward  the 
loop  of  the  Meuse  in  its  bend  westward.  The  center 
of  gravity,  as  I  understood  the  plan,  was  to  pass 
from  the  Fifth  Corps  to  the  First  on  the  left,  whose 
flank  was  on  the  Bourgogne  forest,  with  an  intricate 
tactical  problem  to  solve  in  scalloping  and  flank 
maneuvers.  Here  we  met  severe  resistance  from 
the  Germans,  who  were  still  inclined  to  hold  their 
bastion.  Though  the  78th  had  pounded  its  old 
enemy,  the  Loges  Wood,  with  shells  of  big  calibers 
from  heavy  American  and  French  batteries  assigned 
to  it,  the  Germans  still  clung  to  their  machine-guns; 
and  though  the  Bourgogne  Wood  was  thoroughly 
gassed,  it  poured  in  a  strong  flanking  fire,  and  even 
sent  out  one  counter-attack.  The  77th  was  checked 
by  heavy  casualties  in  its  effort  to  storm  Champi- 


VICTORY  593 

gneulle.  The  8oth,  also  fresh  and  impetuously  de- 
termined to  let  nothing  stop  it,  found  the  Germans 
showing  their  old  form  in  defending  woods  and 
hills,  and  had  to  repeat  their  attacks  and  repulse 
counter-attacks;  for  our  left,  which  had  the  longest 
swing  to  make,  was  delayed,  while  our  center,  taking 
over  the  center  of  gravity  as  the  result  of  its  ad- 
vance, had  gone  ahead  for  four  and  five  miles. 

The  Rainbows  of  the  42nd,  in  reserve  with  the 
First  Corps,  were  fractious.  Weren't  they  in  sight 
of  the  rainbow's  end  of  their  year  in  France?  Let 
them  in,  and  they  would  take  it.  Fine  troops  the 
78th,  77th,  and  80th,  no  doubt,  thought  the  Rain- 
bows, but  the  42nd  was  the  42nd,  and  belonged  to 
a  class  by  itself  for  this  kind  of  work.  The  three 
divisions  of  the  First  Corps  were  not  offering 
iridescent  travelers  in  the  rear  a  holiday  on  the  path 
they  had  blazed.  They  were  about  to  enjoy  it  them- 
selves. 

The  enemy  was  making  his  stand  on  the  left  to 
prevent  our  wholesale  capture  of  prisoners,  when 
he  found  that  the  combined  movement  of  the  French 
and  American  armies  would  put  him  into  a  trap;  but 
the  next  day  he  was  out  of  the  Loges  Wood  and 
Champigneulle,  and  retreating  through  the  Bour- 
gogne  forest.  All  three  divisions  took  up  the  pur- 
suit, to  make  up  for  lost  time — and  catch  up  with 
the  procession.    They  were  to  show  that  they  could 


594  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

move  fast,  too.  On  the  2nd  they  made  four  and  five 
miles,  and  on  the  3rd  they  kept  up  the  same  gait, 
which  was  a  marvelous  performance  in  deployment 
and  contact  and  endurance. 

The  Fifth  Corps  in  the  center  faced  the  final 
heights  of  the  whale-back,  the  Barricourt  crest.  For 
its  support  it  had  an  overwhelming  concentration  of 
artillery  fire,  which  Summerall,  the  gunner,  required 
in  order  to  keep  his  word  to  "  go  through." 
Lejeune's  race-horse  2nd  surpassed  its  own  record 
for  speed,  as  we  have  seen.  Not  only  did  it  take 
its  own  objectives,  but  it  was  called  on  to  send  sup- 
port elements  over  to  assist  the  left.  It  was  glad 
to  send  support  elements  anywhere,  if  they  filled  a 
gap  which  the  1st  might  have  filled. 

The  89th,  the  other  division  of  the  Fifth  Corps, 
was  thrown  head  on  against  the  Barricourt  heights. 
Wright  had  been  among  his  officers  and  men,  making 
them  feel  that  all  the  Mississippi  valley  was  calling 
on  them  for  all  there  was  in  them  in  this  attack. 
They  might  have  been  gassed  and  mired  in  the 
Bantheville  Wood,  they  might  be  tired;  but  their 
great  day  had  come.  They  were  "  going  through." 
The  Stokes  mortars  kept  up  with  the  assault  waves, 
even  dragging  wagons  of  ammunition  with  them;  a 
brigade  of  artillery  was  following  up  the  infantry 
two  hours  after  the  attack  began.  Prodigious  effort 
had  a  road  through  the  mire  of  Bantheville  Wood 


VICTORY  595 

by  10.30  in  the  morning,  with  all  the  divisional  trans- 
port moving  up.  No  less  than  those  hard-shell  vet- 
erans of  the  2nd,  the  89th  went  ahead  from  the 
start  in  the  conviction  that  success  was  certain.  Be- 
fore that  day  was  over  they  ran  into  nests  of 
machine-guns  which  ordinarily  ought  to  have  re- 
pulsed the  most  gallant  charge,  but  the  waves  of 
infantry,  with  supports  fast  on  their  heels,  had  tasted 
victory  in  its  intoxicating  depths,  and  they  overcame 
every  obstacle.  That  night  the  Barricourt  ridge  was 
ours;  when  the  Germans  stated  that  their  line  was 
broken,  it  meant  that  we  had  broken  German  resist- 
ance on  the  whale-back.  The  way  was  open  to  the 
Meuse,  and  Germans  in  front  of  the  First  Corps 
had  better  make  the  most  of  the  darkness  of  the 
night  of  the  1st  for  retreat. 

As  the  two  divisions  of  the  Fifth  Corps,  the  2nd 
and  the  89th,  in  the  pell-mell  rush  to  get  the  final 
crest,  which  was  of  such  decisive  importance  in  the 
strategic  plan,  had  become  extended,  the  shorter  ad- 
vances required  of  them  during  the  next  two  days, 
which  included  some  stout,  if  uneven,  resistance,  by 
the  Germans,  allowed  them  time  to  get  transport  in 
order  and  bring  up  more  artillery.  Those  old 
hounds  of  the  1st,  with  their  mouths  watering,  were 
moving  as  close  up  to  the  front  as  their  schedule 
would  permit,  and  straining  at  the  leash.  The  89th, 
having  had  such  a  grueling  time  in  going  over  the 


596  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

ridge,  and  such  hard  marching  after  the  exhaustion 
of  cleaning  up  Bantheville  Wood,  might  be  consid- 
ered nominally  expended,  if  not  in  fact.  When  the 
Fifth  Corps  gave  an  order  that  the  1st  take  over 
the  89th's  place,  General  Wright  objected.  Take 
out  his  Kansans  and  Missourians !  They  were  only 
getting  their  second  wind.  They  were  coming  as 
strong  as  a  flood  on  the  Missouri.  The  order  was 
revoked;  a  second  one  later  was  scotched  by  the 
same  effective  protest.  Meanwhile  the  General  was 
up  at  the  front,  urging  on  his  tired  men  with  the 
persuasive  argument  of  the  Corps  threat.  So  the 
89th  was  to  remain  in  until  the  finish,  while  the  1st, 
licking  its  chops  and  panting,  swinging  this  way  and 
that,  was  begging:  "  Just  give  us  one  bite !  " 

Prospects  were  no  better  for  the  32nd,  in  reserve 
with  the  Third  Corps  on  the  right.  Everybody 
could  not  be  in  this  battle;  the  5th  and  the  90th 
were  willing  that  the  Arrows  should  study  the 
ground  they  had  won,  but  they  might  not  participate 
in  winning  more.  Ely's  and  Allen's  men  were  pre- 
occupied with  that  undertaking  themselves,  and  too 
busy  to  look  after  tourist  parties.  Whereat  the  Ar- 
rows sharpened  their  points  in  impatience,  as  they 
pried  forward,  and  .  tightened  their  bowstrings, 
ready  for  a  flight  if  they  could  draw  the  bows  which, 
if  they  had  the  chance,  would  show  the  divisions  in 
front  the  character  of  veteran  skill. 


VICTORY  597 

If  the  Fifth  Corps  took  its  objectives,  you  might 
be  certain  that  General  Hines  of  the  Third  Corps 
on  the  right  would  take  his,  and  maintain  his  repu- 
tation for  brevity  by  reporting  the  fact  with  no  more 
embellishment  than  a  ship's  log.  If  he  had  written 
Caesar's  commentaries,  they  would  have  been  com- 
pressed into  one  chapter.  The  former  commander 
of  the  bull-dog  4th  Division,  who  had  been  on  the 
Meuse  flank  under  the  cross  artillery  fire  from  Sep- 
tember 26th,  knew  his  ground.  As  the  Third  Corps 
had  its  flank  on  the  Meuse  and  was  to  swing  in 
toward  the  river  bank,  it  had  the  shortest  advance 
of  the  three  corps  to  make. 

The  Texans  of  the  90th,  on  the  left  of  his  Corps, 
had  been  fretting  for  a  week  in  face  of  the  Freya 
Stellung  and  the  Andevanne  ridge,  which  they  were 
now  to  take.  In  one  of  his  trips  about  the  front, 
General  Allen  had  had  his  artillery  commander 
killed  at  his  side  by  a  shell.  His  Texans  were  the 
kind  that  would  carry  out  his  careful  plans  for  the 
attack.  Barrages  were  cleverly  arranged;  machine- 
gunners  put  on  high  points  for  covering  fire.  On  the 
1st  the  Texans  made  short  work  of  the  Freya 
Stellung,  reaching  their  objectives  at  every  point,, 
and  eager  to  go  ahead.  The  Germans  put  in  a  first- 
class  division  against  the  Texans  on  the  night  of  the 
2nd;  but  that  did  not  make  any  difference.  It  was 
a  furious  give  and  take  at  some  points,  but  on  the 


598  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

night  of  the  2nd  they  had  Villers-devant-Dun  and 
Hill  212.  The  next  day,  in  face  of  only  desultory 
shelling,  it  was  a  matter  of  tireless  maneuver  and 
scattered  fighting,  with  the  worst  punishment  from 
low-flying  German  planes,  raking  our  lines  with 
machine-gun  bullets.  That  night  the  90th  was  or- 
ganizing on  the  Halles  ridge,  preparatory  to  striking 
for  the  river  bank. 

The  5th,  the  right  division  of  the  Third  Corps,  as 
It  pivoted  on  the  Meuse  bank,  had  patrols  studying 
the  river  for  a  crossing  at  Brieulles  and  beyond  on 
[November  1st.  The  next  morning  its  left  entered 
^Clery-le-Petit,  a  mile  farther  down  the  river  from 
Brieulles,  and  cleaned  up  the  horseshoe  bluff  known 
as  the  Punch-bowl.  Now  we  had  word  that  the 
Fourth  French  Army,  on  the  west,  and  our  First 
jCorps,  on  the  east,  of  the  Bourgogne  forest,  in  their 
rapid  pursuit  were  out  of  touch  with  the  enemy. 
This  prompted  energetic  measures  by  the  5th  in 
crossing  the  river,  which  General  Ely  was  to  apply 
in  dashing  initiative  that  will  hold  our  attention  later. 

By  this  time  on  that  shell-cursed  western  slope  of 
the  Meuse  where  many  of  our  divisions  had  fought 
under  the  cross-fire  from  the  galleries,  there  was 
only  an  occasional  burst.  Apart  from  the  taking  of 
the  whale-back,  there  was  another  reason — the 
action  east  of  the  Meuse,  where  our  divisions,  co- 
operating with  the  French,  had  sprung  to  the  attack 


VICTORY  599 

on  the  morning  of  November  ist  no  less  energet- 
ically than  on  the  main  battlefield.  The  Yankees 
of  the  26th,  as  the  only  National  Guard  division 
then  in  the  front  line,  sharing  the  freshened  confi- 
dence of  the  hour,  put  the  survivors  of  all  four  regi- 
ments in  line,  their  sector  being  now  farther  south, 
over  the  ridges  and  through  the  woods  north  of  Ver- 
dun, where  they  were  hampered  by  bad  roads  and 
mud,  which  was  to  give  them  a  part  in  keeping  with 
their  record  in  the  last  acts  of  the  drama.  The  79th 
was  making  a  maneuver  up  the  slopes  of  the  bowl 
which  called  for  initiative  and  consummate  tactical 
resourcefulness.  Kuhn,  who  had  formed  the  divi- 
sion and  led  it,  knew  his  men.  There  was  nothing 
they  would  not  attempt.  He  knew  his  enemy,  too. 
A  great  honor  had  come  to  the  79th,  the  honor  of 
storming  the  Borne  de  Cornouiller,  or  Hill  378,  the 
highest  of  all  the  hills  we  took  in  the  battle, — 
"  corned  willy,"  as  the  soldiers  fighting  for  it  on  cold 
corned  beef  called  it. 

There  was  no  rapid  pursuit  for  them,  but  wicked 
uphill  work  all  the  way,  in  three  days  of  repeated 
charges.  Starting  from  the  Molleville  farm  clear- 
ing, they  had  to  ascend  the  steep,  wooded  slopes  of 
the  Etraye  and  Grande  Montagne  ridges,  and 
struggle  down  one  side  and  up  the  other  of  that 
deadly  Vaux  de  Mille  Mais  and  other  ravines,  be- 
fore they  were  in  sight  of  the  Borne.     The  German 


600  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

grew  bitter  in  his  resistance  at  the  thought  of  having 
to  yield  this  favorite  height,  which  had  given  his  ob- 
servers a  far-flung  view,  and  his  artillery  cover  to 
swing  the  volume  of  fire  into  the  flank  of  our  Third 
Corps.  The  Borne  was  a  bald  and  gently  rounded 
ridge,  with  the  undulating  plateau-like  crest,  facing 
the  bare  and  steep  slope  which  the  79th  had  to 
ascend,  peculiarly  favorable  for  machine-gun  de- 
fense in  front,  while  along  the  bordering  road  to  the 
west,  in  the  edge  of  the  Grande  Montagne  Wood, 
machine-guns  could  sweep  in  flank  the  road  and  the 
whole  slope.  Piles  of  cartridge  cases  which  had  been 
emptied  into  our  waves  were  silent  witnesses  of  the 
fire  the  assaults  of  the  79th  had  endured  when  every 
khaki  figure  was  exposed  on  the  blue  sky-line,  a  piti- 
lessly distinct  silhouette  at  close  range. 

Checked  at  this  point  and  that,  taking  advantage 
of  each  fresh  gain  in  gathering  their  strength  for 
another  effort,  the  men  of  the  79th  kept  on  until 
they  had  worked  their  way  through  the  woods  and 
finally  overrun  the  crest.  There  in  their  triumph,  as 
they  looked  far  across  the  Meuse  over  the  hills  and 
ridges  and  patches  of  woods,  they  might  see  the 
very  heights  of  the  whale-back  which  had  been  their 
goal  when  they  charged  down  the  valley  of  Mont- 
faucon  on  September  26th  in  their  baptism  of  fire. 
That  Borne  was  the  crowning  point  of  those  frown- 
ing hills  and  ridges  east  of  the  Meuse,  which  bullet- 


VICTORY  601 

headed  Prussian  staff  officers,  who  dreamed  of  fight- 
ing to  the  last  ditch,  had  foreseen  as  a  line  of  im- 
pregnable defense  on  French  soil,  which  should  be- 
come as  horrible  a  shambles  as  their  neighbors,  the 
hills  of  Verdun.  They  had  a  new  and  inexpressibly 
grateful  relation  now  to  the  vineyards  of  France, 
her  well-tilled  fields,  her  flower  gardens  of  the 
Riviera,  and  the  security  of  the  whole  world — for 
everywhere  the  bullet-headed  Prussian  officer  was 
becoming  the  protesting  flotsam  in  the  midst  of  a 
breaking  army  which  he  could  not  control.  The  79th 
had  gone  as  far  as  it  was  wanted  to  go  in  following 
north  the  course  of  the  Meuse  in  that  movement 
begun  on  October  8th  when  the  33rd  crossed  the 
Meuse  and  advanced  on  the  flank  of  the  29th  toward 
the  Borne. 

Now  another  division,  the  5th,  was  to  cross  the 
Meuse.  The  Meuse  bottoms  were  broad,  as  I  have 
hitherto  noted,  and  swampy  in  places  under  the 
heavy  rains,  and  required  that  the  Meuse  canal  as 
well  as  the  river  should  be  bridged.  There  were 
many  points  on  the  river  bottoms  as  well  as  on  the 
hills  on  the  east  bank  where  machine-gunners  might 
hide.  German  units  still  being  urged  to  stand  felt  the 
appeal  to  their  skill  of  such  an  advantage  of  position; 
their  commanders  the  value  of  holding  all  the  Meuse 
heights  they  could  to  assist  the  retreat  of  the  Ger- 
mans on  the  west.     The  5th,  despite  its  daring  ef- 


602  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

forts,  was  not  to  achieve  a  crossing  until  the  90th 
on  its  left  had  finished  its  longer  swing.  On  the 
night  of  the  3rd  our  Third  Corps  measured  eight 
miles  of  front  on  the  river  bank.  For  the  5th  and 
the  other  divisions,  as  their  fan-shaped  movement 
toward  the  bend  brought  each  in  turn  to  the  river, 
it  was  a  case  of  patrols  finding  openings  by  night 
between  the  tornadoes  of  machine-gun  fire,  where 
the  engineers  might  do  the  building  under  the  pro- 
tection of  our  artillery.  Material  for  the  bridges 
had  to  be  found  or  brought  from  the  rear.  In  this 
our  initiative  and  resourcefulness  were  at  their 
best. 

At  dark  on  the  night  of  the  3rd  the  attempts  be- 
gan. The  engineers  went  to  their  hazardous  task 
of  working  under  fire,  which  is  harder  than  shoot- 
ing back  at  your  enemy.  They  stealthily  managed 
to  put  a  footbridge  across  the  river,  but  when  they 
started  to  build  another  across  the  canal,  they  met 
a  hurricane  of  machine-gun  and  rifle  fire,  while  the 
German  guns  concentrating  upon  them  forced  their 
retirement.  The  engineers  are  a  patient  and  tire- 
less lot,  who  can  wait  until  a  burst  of  fire  has  died 
down  and  then  start  work  again.  By  2  A.M.  they 
had  two  footbridges  across  the  canal.  When  a  small 
column  of  infantry  tried  to  cross,  they  were  blown 
back  by  the  enemy,  who  had  evidently  been  watch- 
ing for  the  target  to  appear.     The  infantry  dug  in 


VICTORY  603 

between  the  canal  and  the  river.  This  much  was 
gained  at  all  events. 

At  9.30  the  next  morning  came  a  message  from 
the  Corps,  directing  that  "  the  crossing  will  be  ef- 
fected regardless  of  loss,  as  the  movement  of  the 
entire  Army  depends  upon  this  crossing,  and  it  must 
be  done  at  once." 

There  was  nothing  to  do,  then,  but  cross  or  die 
in  the  effort,  without  waiting  for  darkness.  All 
available  artillery  was  asked  to  pound  the  east  bank 
of  the  Meuse  until  eight  in  the  evening.  At  four  in 
the  afternoon  the  5th  started  to  lay  a  pontoon  bridge 
across  at  Clery-le-Petit,  where  the  river  was  no  feet 
wide  and  10  feet  deep.  The  pontoons  were  not 
blown  up  by  shell-fire  quite  as  fast  as  they  were  put 
in  the  water.  Therefore  the  bridge  was  finally  com- 
pleted. Under  a  barrage  of  artillery  fire  two  bat- 
talions made  a  rush  to  cross  the  bridge.  The  Ger- 
man artillery  began  tearing  them  to  pieces  at  the 
same  time  that  it  was  tearing  the  bridge  to  pieces. 

Happily  the  5th  was  not  putting  all  its  eggs  in 
one  basket.  At  6.20  another  party,  without  any 
artillery  preparation,  succeeded  in  crossing  the  canal 
as  well  as  the  river  at  Brieulles,  and  once  on  the 
other  side  would  not  be  budged  from  maintaining 
their  narrow  bridgehead  in  face  of  the  plunging  fire 
from  the  heights.  Just  below  Brieulles,  another 
battalion,  which  was  also  favored,  no  doubt,  by  the 


6o4  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

German  attention  being  drawn  to  the  fragile  targets 
of  the  pontoons,  in  the  most  unostentatious  but  ex- 
peditious manner  got  across  by  using  rafts,  duck- 
boards,  poles,  and  ropes,  and  by  swimming.  The 
water  of  the  river  was  bitter  cold,  but  we  were  win- 
ning the  war,  and  every  soldier  in  the  Meuse-Ar- 
gonne  was  used  to  being  wet  by  rain.  This  sopping 
battalion  made  a  lodgment  in  Chatillon  Wood,  and 
kept  warm  during  the  night  by  cleaning  the  Germans 
out  of  it. 

It  appeared  at  midnight  that  the  whole  division 
would  have  to  swing  round  to  cross  the  river  by  way 
of  Brieulles;  but  before  morning  the  left  brigade, 
on  the  north,  put  pontoons  over  successfully  during 
the  night,  and  crossed  a  battalion;  for  the  Aces  of 
the  5th  had  taken  the  Corps  order  to  heart.  Never 
let  it  be  said  that  the  5th  was  holding  up  the  entire 
Army — if  it  really  were.  General  Hines  was  a  very 
taciturn  man,  as  I  have  remarked;  and  the  Army 
staff  had  studied  foreign  methods  in  propaganda. 

By  8  A.M.  there  were  artillery  bridges  over  the 
Meuse  at  Brieulles.  Such  speed  as  this  ought  to  be 
encouraged  by  calling  for  more  speed.  Two  bri- 
gades had  detachments  across  the  river.  The  next 
thing  was  to  join  up  the  bridgeheads  and  take  Dun- 
sur-Meuse,  and  this  immediately.  General  Ely,  of 
square  jaw  and  twinkling  blue  eyes,  did  not  care  who 
took  it,  so  it  was  taken. 


VICTORY  605 

"  Take  Dun-sur-Meuse  and  the  hill  north  of  292, 
and  from  there  go  to  the  east,"  he  told  one  brigade. 
"  Do  not  wait  for  the  other  brigade.  Keep  pushing 
up  with  that  one  battalion,  and  take  that  place." 

"  Keep  shoving  your  battalions  through,"  he  told 
the  other  brigade.  "  Don't  stop,  but  go  through 
Dun.  Take  the  shelling,  and  take  the  machine-gun 
fire,  and  push  things  along.  You  are  to  go  to  Dun 
unless  the  other  fellow  gets  there  first." 

Thus  Dun  and  the  heights  were  taken  that  day, 
and  the  5th  fully  established  on  the  east  bank  of  the 
Meuse.  It  was  an  accomplishment  admirable  in 
courage  and  skill. 

The  spirit  of  rivalry  shown  by  the  battalions  rush- 
ing for  Dun  was  that  of  all  the  divisions  sweeping 
down  the  apron  of  the  reverse  slopes  of  the  whale- 
back  toward  the  river.  This  apron  was  not  a  smooth 
descent,  but  undulating,  broken  by  hills,  ravines,  and 
woods,  where  machine-gunners  could  take  cover  and 
force  deployment.  In  many  instances  advancing  was 
no  mere  maneuver.  The  89th  ran  into  strong  oppo- 
sition on  the  heights  overlooking  the  Meuse,  and  in 
common  with  all  other  divisions  could  not  answer 
the  enem>  artillery,  as  we  did  not  want  to  fire  into 
the  inhabited  villages  on  the  other  bank.  The  2nd 
met  strong  resistance  on  the  4th,  which  required 
organizing  a  regular  attack;  but,  of  course,  it  went 
through.     Lejeune  was  not  a  man  to  consider  any 


6o6 


OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 


other  result,  or  his  men  inclined  to  waste  time  when 
the  1st  Division  was  waiting  in  the  rear  to  take  the 
2nd's  place  if  it  so  much  as  stubbed  its  toe.  As  we 
know,  on  critical  occasions,  the  2nd  did  not  worry 
about  casualties.  Its  casualty  list,  whose  total  was 
the  heaviest  of  any  division  in  France,  for  the  final 
drive  was  over  four  thousand. 

Enemy  resistance  varied  with  the  mood  of  indi- 
vidual units.  A  few  answered  the  professional  call 
and  the  call  of  fatalism  not  to  miss  an  opportunity 
to  turn  their  machine-guns  upon  our  advancing 
troops.  Others  asked  only  to  escape  or  to  surrender. 
The  harder  we  pressed,  the  larger  would  be  this 
class.  Our  own  mood  was  that  of  the  soldier  who 
has  his  enemy  in  flight.  Every  blow  was  another 
argument  for  an  armistice,  and  a  further  assurance 
of  an  early  passage  home.  The  elation  of  the  chase 
eliminated  the  sense  of  fatigue.  Abandoned  guns, 
rifles,  bombs,  trench  mortars,  worn-out  automobiles 
and  trucks,  all  the  stage  properties  of  retreat  were 
in  the  wake  of  that  German  army  whose  mighty  or- 
ganization had  held  the  world  in  a  fearful  awe. 
We  were  passing  through  a  region  where  houses 
were  intact  and  only  a  few  shells  had  fallen  in  the 
course  of  our  advance.  Villagers  in  a  wondering 
delirium  of  joy  were  watching  the  groups  of  Ger- 
man prisoners,  too  weary  for  any  emotion  except 
a  sense  of  relief,  of  officers  with  long  faces  and  a 


VICTORY  607 

glazed,  despairing  look  in  their  eyes,  officers  who 
were  indifferent,  and  occasional  ones  in  whom  the 
defiance  of  Prussian  militarism  still  bore  itself  in 
ineffectual  superciliousness;  and  watching  these 
strange  Americans  going  and  coming  on  their  er- 
rands, and  the  passage  of  our  troops,  guns,  and  trans- 
port in  an  urgent  procession  which  thought  of  noth- 
ing except  getting  ahead. 

The  Commander-in-Chief  having  on  the  5th 
directly  urged  all  possible  speed  on  the  left  toward 
the  Meuse  at  Sedan,  which  was  of  course  the  farthest 
objective  from  our  starting-point,  those  mouth- 
watering veteran  hounds  in  reserve  of  the  First  and 
Fifth  Corps  at  last  had  their  leashes  removed,  and 
joined  the  pack  in  full  cry.  Taking  the  place  of  the 
78th,  the  men  of  the  42nd  knew  now  that  there  was 
a  rainbow's  end,  and  they  meant  that  it  should  go 
to  none  other  than  the  Rainbow  Division.  March 
is  hardly  the  word  for  their  speed;  gallop  is  a  better 
one.  On  the  8th  they  had  reached  Wadelincourt, 
a  suburb  across  the  river  from  Sedan,  in  their  won- 
derful dash.  Their  Rainbow  ambition  having  con- 
sidered all  northern  France  as  their  objective,  they 
found  that  they  were  out  of  the  American  sector, 
and  accordingly  must  be  "  side-slipped."  The 
French  took  Sedan.  There  was  historical  fitness  in 
the  French  poilus,  in  their  faded  blue,  being  the  first 
troops  to  enter  that  town,  where  a  French  disaster, 


608  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

due  to  a  travesty  of  imperial  leadership,  had  glori- 
fied the  Hohenzollern  dynasty,  which  was  now  a 
travesty  with  its  armies  in  dissolution. 

The  ist,  swinging  over  to  the  left  but  still  re- 
maining with  the  Fifth  Corps,  had  a  long  march 
before  reaching  the  front  of  the  8oth,  which  it  re- 
lieved. When  it  received  the  word  to  go,  it  devel- 
oped a  speed  which  was  sufficient  reason  for  its  being 
in  at  the  finish,  without  depending  upon  its  record  in 
previous  actions.  Our  pioneer  veterans  had  two  days 
and  two  nights  in  line,  advancing  ten  miles.  Then 
they  were  "  squeezed  out "  by  the  "  side-slipping  " 
of  the  42nd  from  before  Sedan.  From  the  morn- 
ing of  November  5th,  when  the  call  came  to  them, 
until  midnight  of  November  7th-8th,  their  units  had 
fought  for  forty-eight  hours,  and  marched  from 
thirty  to  forty-five  miles.  Will  the  racehorse  2nd 
please  take  note  of  this? 

If  the  Arrows  of  the  32nd,  the  third  of  the  vet- 
eran divisions  in  reserve,  had  had  to  go  home  without 
being  in  the  final  drive,  when  the  42nd  was  in  it,  our 
army  staff  would  have  been  even  more  unpopular 
than  it  was.  They,  too,  had  this  chance.  As  the 
Third  Corps'  front  broadened  with  its  advance  over 
the  heights  on  the  other  side  of  the  river  they  took 
over  a  portion  of  the  sector  of  the  15th  French 
Colonials,  where  they  were  driving  the  enemy  in 
most  uncivil  fashion  when  the  flag  fell. 


VICTORY  609 

The  Texans  of  the  90th  had  to  swing  their  right 
flank  to  the  river  bank  in  liaison  with  the  flank  of 
the  5th,  and  keep  firm  liaison  with  the  89th  on  their 
left.  They  faced  very  resolute  fire  from  the  other 
bank  in  their  bridge -building,  which  had  to  be  done 
under  most  troublesome  conditions  after  some 
expensive  reconnoitering,  in  which  the  Texans  did 
not  allow  artillery  or  machine-gun  fire  to  interfere 
with  their  pioneering  audacity.  On  the  9th  they  had 
orders  to  cross.  That  night  they  went  over  their 
new  bridge  under  a  pitiless  fire.  While  one  detach- 
ment went  into  Stenay,  which  lies  under  a  bluff, 
where  it  had  a  busy  time  in  cleaning  up  the  town, 
the  other  detachment  pressed  on  into  Baalon  Wood. 

Meanwhile  the  Kansans  and  Missourians  of  the 
89th  had  been  preparing,  at  the  same  time  with  the 
2nd  of  the  Fifth  Corps,  to  cross  and  take  the  heights 
of  Inor.  As  soon  as  their  outposts  reached  the  bank, 
their  patrols  had  begun  swimming  the  river  under 
machine-gun  fire.  They  were  assigned  some  German 
pontoons,  which  they  transformed  into  rafts.  The 
first  was  rowed  across;  the  others  were  pulled  across 
with  ropes.  Seventy-five  men  being  crowded  on  each 
raft,  they  put  one  whole  battalion  on  the  opposite 
bank  while  footbridges  were  being  smashed  by  the 
enemy  artillery  as  fast  as  the  engineers  could  build 
them.  The  battalion,  having  taken  over  a  hundred 
prisoners,  pressed  on  to  Autreville.    It  goes  without 


■6 io  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

saying  that  the  2nd  had  also  effected  a  crossing — 
and  under  equally  trying  conditions. 

Every  battalion  over  the  Meuse,  every  rod  of 
ground  gained,  was  considered  a  further  argument 
for  the  Germans  to  accept  the  terms  of  the  armistice 
now  in  their  hands.  Until  the  word  to  cease  fire 
came,  the  Army  would  go  on  fighting;  at  dawn  on 
the  nth,  when  the  German  delegates  were  signing 
their  names  on  Marshal  Foch's  train  our  Second 
Army,  weak  in  numbers  and  strong  in  heart,  began 
carrying  out  the  orders  that  had  been  planned  in 
the  Saint-Mihiel  sector,  where  several  of  our  veteran 
divisions  had  been  resting  after  being  expended  in 
the  Meuse-Argonne,  and  we  had  the  7th  and  88th 
among  our  new  divisions.  On  the  right  was  the 
92nd,  colored,  National  Army,  nearest  of  all  our 
troops  to  the  former  German  frontier,  who  were 
the  first  to  cross  it,  I  understand,  in  their  successful 
charge.  To  say  that  the  28th  and  the  33rd  were 
also  in  the  action  is  sufficient.  They  were  going 
ahead,  and  the  German  infantry  was  resisting  with 
machine-gun  fire  which  caused  numerous  casualties, 
and  the  German  artillery  was  responding  with  a 
heavy  bombardment  at  some  points,  when  word  was 
flashed  through  from  Marshal  Foch  to  our  General 
Headquarters,  and  through  to  the  Second  Army,  and 
out  to  the  regiments  and  battalions,  that  at  1 1  A.M. 
hostilities  would  cease. 


VICTORY  611 

The  Second  Army  advance  was  immediately 
stopped.  Everywhere  east  of  the  Meuse  our  troops 
were  advancing  on  the  morning  of  the  nth.  The 
8ist  was  engaged  on  the  flank  of  the  veteran  26th, 
which  had  been  ceaselessly  pushing  the  enemy  over 
the  hills  since  November  1st,  and  was  now  approach- 
ing the  plain.  The  79th,  after  taking  the  Borne  de 
Cornouiller,  had  faced  round  in  a  rapid  and  brilliant 
maneuver,  pressing  over  the  rim  of  the  bowl  from 
the  Grande  Montagne  and  from  Belleu  Wood,  in 
whose  fox-holes  three  of  our  divisions  had  suffered, 
and  moving  down  into  the  plain  had  taken  Dam- 
villers,  and  was  now  storming  the  last  of  the  three 
hills  between  its  line  and  the  plain  of  the  Woevre. 
The  men  were  wrathful  at  being  stopped.  They 
wanted  to  finish  the  job:  to  take  the  last  of  the 
hills. 

At  many  points  where  our  infantry  units  were 
far  beyond  our  communications  and  infiltrating 
around  hills  and  through  woods,  it  took  some  time 
to  reach  the  rapidly  moving  advance  detachments 
with  the  news  that  they  were  to  cease  firing  and  go 
no  farther.  Particularly  was  this  true  in  front  of 
the  Fifth  Corps,  whose  skirmishers,  having  just 
crossed  the  river,  were  taking  the  bit  in  their  teeth. 
A  few  elements  were  still  engaging  the  German  rear- 
guard at  eleven,  unaware  that  the  war  was  over, 
while  on  all  the  remainder  of  the  front  from  Switzer- 


612  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

land  to  Holland  there  was  silence  for  the  first  time 
in  four  years — and  the  mills  of  hell  had  ceased 
grinding. 

Two  of  the  divisions  which  had  been  in  line  on 
the  first  day  of  the  Meuse-Argonne  battle  were  in 
line  on  the  last.  Two  others  which  had  helped 
break  the  old  trench  system  on  September  26th,  the 
37th  and  the  91st,  were  to  see  the  finish  far  from 
our  army  family,  on  the  plains  of  Belgium.  Isolated 
in  an  odd  Flemish  world  of  level  fields  broken  by 
canals,  the  two  were  attached  to  different  French 
corps  in  that  Allied  force  of  British  and  French  and 
Belgians  under  the  Belgian  King,  and  under  the 
direct  command  of  General  Degoutte,  which  had  dis- 
engaged Ypres,  recovered  Ostend,  Bruges,  Roulers, 
and  Courtrai,  when  on  October  31st  our  men  joined 
in  that  tide  of  victory  which  was  soon  to  flow  into 
Brussels  itself.  In  three  days  they  made  eight  miles 
against  irregular  rearguard  action.  In  taking  the 
low  ridge  commanding  the  Scheldt,  they  were  under  a 
heavy  artillery  reaction  of  the  Germans  in  protect- 
ing the  retreat  across  the  river.  The  Ohioans  on 
November  2nd,  in  face  of  the  concentrations  of  gun- 
fire, were  able  to  slip  small  detachments  across  on 
bridges  improvised  from  tree-trunks  and  timbers 
taken  from  shattered  houses,  and  eventually,  that 
night,  to  pass  over  several  battalions  on  a  temporary 


VICTORY  613 

footbridge;  the  91st  and  the  French  divisions  were 
unsuccessful  in  reaching  the  other  bank  except  by 
this  one  bridge.  The  Pacific  Coast  men,  with  their 
usual  intrepidity,  were  planning  to  swim  the  river, 
but  after  three  days  of  continued  advance,  which 
included  the  capture  of  the  large  town  of  Audenarde, 
they  and  the  Ohioans  were  given  a  rest  by  the  corps 
commands.  On  the  10th  they  were  put  in  line  again, 
but  they  did  not  overtake  the  line  pursuing  the  re- 
treating enemy  before  his  capitulation. 

Some  American  units,  besides  the  27th  and  30th 
Divisions  with  the  British,  had  been  isolated  from 
the  first  from  the  American  family.  American  hos- 
pitals in  base  towns  on  both  the  British  and  French 
fronts  were  an  evidence,  from  the  days  of  our  neu- 
trality, of  that  work  of  war  which  knows  no  national 
allegiance.  Volunteer  ambulance  sections,  maintain- 
ing the  traditions  of  the  American  Field  Service,  con- 
tinued to  the  end  to  serve  with  French  divisions; 
and  indeed,  many  of  the  former  volunteers  who  had 
preferred  to  prepare  for  commissions  in  the  French 
army  might  be  come  upon  unexpectedly  in  the  hori- 
zon blue  uniform.  Engineer  troops  for  which  our 
Allies  had  made  an  early  request  might  be  buried  in 
obscure  parts  of  the  front,  to  come  to  light  only  in 
the  shadow  of  an  emergency  which,  as  at  Cambrai 
and  in  the  German  March  offensive,  turned  engineer 
troops  into  combatants;  or  again,  as  our  own  de- 


6i4  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

mands  grew,  to  return  to  our  own  fold.  Air  squad- 
rons, as  well  as  individual  aviators,  served  in  valiant 
anonymity  on  Allied  fronts,  in  many  cases  never 
seeing  the  American  front,  which  yet  wanted  for 
aviation.  So  wide  was  the  dispersion  of  Americans 
throughout  France  that  it  is  safe  to  say  that  hardly 
a  single  commune  of  the  country  has  gone  without 
sight  of  the  soldier  from  overseas.  In  due  time  the 
far-flung  legions  would  all  have  come  home  to  an 
integral  army;  but  the  problem  of  keeping  in  touch 
with  units  which  believed  themselves  lost  to  the  sight 
of  their  comrades  was  not  a  simple  one,  and  yet 
a  problem  that  must  be  faced.  How  was  the  motor 
park,  isolated  in  French  barracks  at  Epinal,  or  the 
forestry  unit  in  the  Jura  or  the  Pyrenees,  to  be  as- 
sured that  somewhere  in  the  inner  circles  of 
hierarchy  its  faithful  service  was  being  noted  and 
appreciated? 

Most  isolated  of  all,  though  they  received  due 
meed  of  honor  from  the  French  with  whom  they 
served,  were  certain  colored  regiments.  Recruited 
from  various  National  Guard  organizations  in 
northern  States,  they  had  arrived  in  a  training  area 
in  France  after  a  usual  period  of  service  as  labor 
troops  in  the  S.  O.  S.,  and  were  formed  into  a  provi- 
sional 93rd  Division,  which  was  not,  however,  to  be 
assembled.  In  the  spring  the  regiments  were  assigned 
to  various  French  divisions  for  trench  service,  at  the 


VICTORY  615 

request  of  the  French  staff,  which  had  developed 
long  experience  with  colored  troops  in  many  African 
campaigns.  For  this  service  the  Americans  were 
equipped  throughout  with  French  mustard-colored 
khaki  uniforms,  French  rifles,  packs,  gas  masks,  and 
helmets,  which  still  further  accentuated  their  isola- 
tion. The  varying  fortunes  of  trench  warfare  in 
the  Argonne  and  about  Saint-Mihiel  seasoned  their 
experience  for  a  due  part  in  the  repulse  of  the  last 
German  offensive,  and  in  the  offensive  begun  by 
General  Gouraud's  army  west  of  the  Argonne,  at 
the  same  time  with  our  attack  to  the  east.  With- 
drawn with  their  divisions  after  a  few  days  of  ad- 
vance which  counted  them  as  "  expended,"  the  regi- 
ments were  sent  to  recuperate  in  the  Vosges,  whence 
they  started  on  the  short  march  to  the  Rhine  after 
the  armistice. 

We  know  how,  in  framing  the  armistice  terms,  as 
one  after  another  strong  demand  was  included,  an; 
apprehension  developed  in  certain  Allied  quarters 
lest  the  Germans,  with  such  a  large  army  still  in 
being,  might  become  desperate  and  continue  the  war. 
When  one  read  the  terms,  which  surrendered  the 
German  navy  and  placed  us  in  command  of  the  Rhine 
bridgeheads,  he  knew  how  deep  the  two-edged  sword 
had  cut,  and  that  the  Allies  had  power  in  their  hands 
to  force  complete  submission  to  their  will.    It  was  a 


616  OUR  GREATEST  BATTLE 

skillful  and  wise  peace,  bringing  an  end  to  the  blood- 
shed and  the  agony. 

Only  those  who  considered  it  to  their  honor  or 
their  profit  could  have  wished  to  fight  all  the  way  to 
Berlin.  The  thought  in  the  mind  of  every  soldier 
was:  "  I  still  live;  I  shall  not  have  to  go  under  fire 
again;"  in  the  mind  of  every  relative  of  a  soldier: 
"  He  is  still  alive."  Through  all  the  celebrations  to 
ICome,  it  was  a  thought  dominant  in  subconsciousness, 
if  not  publicly  expressed.  To  some  of  our  own  new- 
comers, perhaps,  who  had  not  yet  been  in  action, 
there  was  human  disappointment  that  they  had  ar- 
rived too  late;  though  our  veterans  and  the  war- 
weary  veterans  of  our  Allies  might  tell  them  that 
they  were  fortunate  in  what  they  had  escaped.  Per- 
haps, too,  certain  of  our  officers,  who  had  worked 
toward  the  vision  of  the  spring  campaign,  when  our 
recuperated  divisions  would  be  supported  by  the 
enormous  quantity  of  munitions  from  home,  and  all 
our  branches  would  be  fully  equipped,  may  have 
felt  that  they  had  been  robbed  of  professional  fulfill- 
ment. Not  until  spring  would  we  have  been  able  to 
undertake  another  offensive  against  determined  re- 
sistance. On  November  i  ith  we  had  only  two  fresh 
divisions  in  reserve;  we  were  depending  upon  green 
replacements,  and  our  hospitals  were  full.  If  we 
had  come  late  into  the  war,  we  had  given  the  full 
measure  of  our  strength  in  the  final  stage. 


VICTORY  617 

The  forming  of  the  new  Third  Army  of  Occupa- 
tion under  Major-General  Joseph  T.  Dickman,. 
drawn  from  our  veteran  divisions  in  a  favorable 
position  for  the  movement,  and  its  long  tour  of 
police  duty,  is  no  more  in  the  province  of  this  book 
than  the  many  journeys  which  the  author  made  after 
the  armistice:  up  and  down  the  Rhine;  into  Brussels,, 
to  see  the  people  welcome  back  their  King;  over  the 
Ypres,  the  Somme,  and  the  Verdun  battlefields,  as 
well  as  our  own;  along  roads  which  had  been  for 
four  years  in  sound  of  the  guns,  now  silent;  among 
our  camps  where  our  soldiers  in  the  dreary,  long-, 
cold  nights  were  impatiently  marking  time  until  their 
homegoing;  through  the  Services  of  Supply,  where 
I  saw  that  vast  machine  we  had  built  reversed,  to 
the  ports,  where  the  tide  of  our  soldiery  was  flow- 
ing outward  instead  of  inward — the  thought  ever  up- 
permost being  that  humanity  might  learn  from  this 
most  monstrous  example  of  war's  folly  how  to  avoid 
its  repetition. 


INDEX 


Ace  of  Diamonds  Division  (see 
§th  Division). 

Aincreville,  571,  575,  581, 
584. 

Aire  river,  10,  51,  58,  60,  65, 
71,  73,  143,  168,  173,  175,  176, 
177,  178,  179,  180,  181,  182, 
184,  187,  189,  190,  203,  210, 
218,  266,  272,  273,  274,  276, 
277,  279,  280,  281,  284,  286, 
293,  294,  297,  298,  299,  300, 
303,  309,  3*3.  315,  32i,  324. 
325,  330,  336,  343,  348,  361, 
365,  399.  5i8,  523,  541,  542, 
546,  552,  553- 

Aisne  river,  53,  55,  56,  57,  249, 
250,   251. 

Alamo,    battle   of   the,    261. 

Alexander,  Major-General  Rob- 
ert, 54. 

Ail-American  Division  (see 
82nd  Division) . 

Allen,  Major-General  Henry 
T.,  572,  596,  597-  . 

Allenby,    General    Sir   Edmund, 

3- 
Alsace,  9,  10. 
"  America  in   France,"   14. 
American   Legion,   473. 
American    Library    Association, 

507. 
Amiens,    n,    248. 
Andevanne,   597. 
Annapolis,      Naval      Academy, 

4*3- 
Antietam,  battle  of,  17. 
Appomattox  campaign,   17,  403, 

577- 
Apremont,    180,    310. 
Argonne    Forest,    8,    10,    11,    13, 

14,  22,  24,  25,  26,   36,  49,  51, 


55,  58,  61,  63,  65,  73,  80,  96, 
142,  143.  144.  168,  169,  170, 
171,  172,  173,  174,  175,  176, 
178,  179,  181,  184,  190,  195, 
204,  222,  244,  249,  251,  267, 
279,  281,  285,  287,  288,  291, 
293,  295,  309,  310,  311,  312, 
3i3,  314,  320,  321,  322,  323, 
324,  336,  361,  583,  615. 
Argonne    offensive    (see   Battle, 

19 1 5). 
Arietal   farm,   296. 
Armentieres,   3. 
Army: 

American,      First,      31,      357, 
358,   360,    374,   515. 
Second,   357,   358,   362,   610, 

611. 
Third,    617. 
French,  Fourth,  24,  26,  36,  50, 
72,   79,  96,   134,   249,    542, 
583,   598. 
Fifth,    134,   251. 
Tenth,  47,  134,  270. 
Arras,  3. 

Arrow  Division  (see  32nd  Divi- 
sion). 
Atlantic     Coast     Division     (see 

79th   Division). 
Atterbury,        Brigadier-General 

W.  W.,  391,  405,  406. 
Attigny,   264. 
Auberive,   251. 
Audenarde,  613. 
Austerlitz,  battle  of,   388. 
Australian    Corps,   48,    70,    148, 

223,  226,  227. 
Australian    3rd    Division,    231. 
Australian  5th  Divison,  231. 
Autreville,  609. 
Avocourt,   61,  66. 


619 


620 


INDEX 


Baalon  Wood,  609. 
Baccarat,    519. 

Bamford,   Brigadier-General   F. 
E.,  564. 

Bantheville,   531,   535,   574,   583. 
Bantheville  Wood,  519,  525,  535, 

540,  57i,  573,  583,  594.  596. 
Bapaume,  227. 
Bar-le-Duc,  26,  27,  75. 
Barricourt,    551,    575,    594,    595. 
Battle  of: 

1914:  Le  Cateau,  248. 

the  Marne,  5,  11,  14,  16, 

592. 
Ypres,   183. 
1915:  the    Argonne,    66,    195, 
198. 
Champagne,    13. 
Loos,   13. 
1916:  the   Somme,   13,   19,  22, 
24,   32,   77,    105,   225, 
570. 
Verdun     (German     of- 
fensive),   8,     14,    65, 
66,  70,   109,  148,   149, 
340,     349,     352,     356, 

485,  554,    555,   569- 
Verdun      (French      of- 
fensive),   355,    569. 

1917:    Cambrai,    225,    613. 

Champagne,  13,  24,  77, 

356. 
Passchendaele,    13. 
1918:  the     Somme      (German 
March   offensive),    7, 
8,    15,    47,    no,    225, 

230,  359,  383,  576, 
592,  613. 

Seicheprey,   60,   560. 

Cantigny,  268,  360,  363. 

the  Marne  (German 
May  offensive),  15, 
46,  47,  250,  252,  325, 
360,     383,    410,    473, 

486,  537,  558,  569, 
576,  59i,  592. 

Champagne  (German 
July  offensive),  55, 
325,   519,  615. 


Battle  of: 

1918:  the  Marne  (Allied  July 
"  counter-offensive  "), 
«i  15,  30,  39,  46,  47, 
48,  52,  56,  68,  97,  U2, 
250,  252,  268,  270,  271, 
361,  365,  380,383,486, 
49i,  519,  560. 

Frapelle,    526. 

the  Somme  (Allied  of- 
fensive, August  8th), 
3,  48,  69,  97,  226. 

Juyigny,    47,    270. 

Saint-Mihiel,  1,  2,  3,  4, 
13,  2i,  24,  26,  28,  30, 

3i,  35,  36,  38,  39,  45, 
46,  47,  68,  69,  77,  96, 
105,  in,  135,  268, 
271,  (280,  361,  362, 
383,  520,  560,  561, 
572. 
Flanders,   August   28th, 

224,   236. 
Flanders,        September 

28th,    134. 
Cambrai-Saint-Quentin, 
September    29th,     29, 
134,   223-243. 
Rheims,  September 

30th,    134,    251. 
Blanc-Mont,        October 

3rd,    134,    249-265. 
Le      Cateau,      October 

8th,  244,  247. 
Flanders,  October  14th, 

244,  612,  613. 
Valenciennes,      October 
17th,  245,  247,  248. 
1919:  Metz,  plan  of,  1,  2,  75. 
Baulny,   188,   189. 
Bayonville-et-Chennery,    591. 
Belfort,  9,  351. 
Belgrade,   516. 
Bell,     Major-General     George, 

69,  151- 

Bell,  Major-General  J.  Frank- 
lin, 421. 

Belleau  Wood,  257,  380,  398, 
558. 


INDEX 


621 


Bellejoyeuse  farm,  544,  545,  546. 

Belleu  Wood,  540,  558,  562, 
563,   567,    568,   584.   611. 

Berlin,  397,  578,  616. 

Berthelot,  General,  134,  251. 

Bethincourt,   151. 

Bethincourt  Wood,  195. 

Beuge  Wood,  210,  220,  326. 

Binarville,   174,   175,  310. 

Blanc-Mont,  249,  257,  258,  259. 

Blue  Ridge  Division  (see  80th 
Division). 

Blois,  393,  394,  449,  450,  451, 
454,  455,  456,  457,  45.8,  499. 

Blue  and  Grey  Division  (see 
29th   Division). 

Bony,  223,  238,  241,  242. 

Bordeaux,   397,   399,  402,  403. 

Borne  de  Cornouiller  (see  Hill 
378). 

Boulasson  brook,  288. 

Boult  Forest,  293,  321. 

Boureuilles,  58,  60. 

Bourgogne  Wood,  175,  321,  543, 
544,  545,  546,  549,  583,  59°, 
592,  593,  598. 

Bouzon  Wood,   177. 

Brabant,  350. 

Brancourt,  246. 

Brent,  Chaplain  Charles  H., 
5". 

Brest,  391,  399,  400,  401,  402. 

Brieulles,  143,  147,  154,  155,  159, 
160,  163,  167,  324,  337,  338, 
34i,  343,  344,  345,  365,  527i 
539,  57i,  575,  581,  584,  598, 
603,  604. 

Brieulles  Wood,  164,  165. 

Briey,  u,  13. 

Brown,  Brigadier-General  Pres- 
ton, 537,  538. 

Bruges,  516,  612. 

Brussels,  591,  612,  617. 

Buck,  Major-General  Beau- 
mont B.,  324. 

Bullard,  Lieutenant-General 
Robert  L.,  30,  55,  61,  355,  358, 
362-365,  371. 

Bull  Run,  battle  of,  83,  359. 


Burgundy,  403. 

Busigny,   246. 

Buzancy,  1,  10,  II,  124,  127,  542. 

Caesar,  84,   349,  597. 

Cambrai,    134,    223,    244     (and 

see  Battle,  1917,  1918). 
Cameron,      Major-General 

George  H.,  30,  65,  194. 
Cantigny,    battle    of,    268,    360, 

363. 
Champagne,  8,  10,  40,  196,  250, 

251,     256     (and     see    Battle, 

191 5,     1917,     1918). 
Champigneulle,  550. 
Chancellorsville,    battle    of,    17,, 

592,   593- 

Charlevaux   ravine,    174. 

Charpentry,  187,  188,  189. 

Chateau-Thierry,  1,  15,  21,  55, 
449,  586  (and  see  Battle, 
1918,  Marne). 

Chateau-Chehery,  282,  283,  284,. 
285,  294,  298. 

Chatillon  ridge,  318,  515,  5,19, 
520,  521,  529,  540,  551. 

Chatillon   Wood,   604. 

Chaume   Wood,   351,   353,   354. 

Chaumont  (General  Headquar- 
ters),  182,  373,  379,  380,  391, 

392,  394,  404,  437,  442,  610. 
Chemin  des  Dames,  560. 
Chene  Sec  Wood,  202,  276,  277, 

294- 
Chene   Tondu    (hill),    168,    175, 

178,    179,    180,    181. 
Chenes  Wood,   558. 
Cheppy,   185,   186. 
Cheppy  Wood,  66,  195,  196,  199, 
Cherbourg,  397. 
Chevieres,  320,  542. 
Cierges,  202,  210,  211,  212,  267, 

275- 
Cierges  Wood,  200,  201,  202. 
Civil   War,    159,   428,   437,   438, 

459,  487,  497- 
Clairs   Chenes  Wood,    537,    538* 

540. 
Clermont  (-en-Argonne),  75. 


622 


INDEX 


Clery-le-Petit,    598,   603. 
Cold  Harbor,  battle  of,  267,  273. 
Consenvoye,  350. 
Consenvoye   Wood,   352. 
Cornay,  287,  288,  289,  290,  291, 

292,  293,  298,   314. 
Corps  : 

American,  First,  30,  65,  67,  73, 

168,    179,    197,    272,    296, 

324,    359,    362,    583,    584, 

592,  593,  595,  598,  607. 

Second,    134,   223,   224,   228, 

230,    231,    244,   245. 
Third,  30,  65,  67,  70,  72,  73, 
147,    153,    157,    158,    162, 
166,    167,    168,    268,    324, 
332,    333,    365,    37i,    553, 
563,    575,    583,    584,    596, 
597,    598,    600,    602,    608. 
Fifth,  30,  60,  61,  65,  66,  67, 
155,    160,    194,    197,    207, 
213,    296,    303,    324,    365, 
520,    583,    584,    587,    592, 
594,    595,    596,    597,    607, 
608,    609,   611. 
British,  Third,  236,  239. 
Thirteenth,  246,  248. 
Australian,   48,   70,    148,    223, 
226,    227,    230,    241,    242, 
243. 
Second    Colonial,    584. 
•    French,   Ninth,   556. 

Seventeenth,    348,    351,    352, 

554- 
Twenty-first,  257,  262. 
Courtrai,   612. 
Cote  d'Or,  403. 
Counter-offensive      (see     Battle, 

19 1 8). 
Crepion,  557,  562,  567. 
Conkhite,    Major-General    Ad- 

elbert,   68,   153. 
Cuba    {see  Spanish  War). 
Cuisy,  155,  162,  217,  218,  219. 
Cuisy  Wood,  140,  217. 
Cunel,   333,   337,    338,   344,   3<>5, 

527. 
Cunel  Wood,  326,  328,  329,  330, 

344- 


Dame    Marie    ridge,    304,    306, 

515,  518,  523,  524,  525,  540. 
Damvillers,  611. 
Dans   les   Vaux  valley,   354. 
Degoutte,  General,  612. 
Delville  Wood,  570. 
Dickman,  Major-General  Joseph 

T.,   362,   583,   587,  617. 
Dijon,  409. 
Divisions,  American: 

ist,  30,  46,  164,  192,  203,  250, 

267-279,   294-308,    313,   314, 

3i5,  324,  325,  326,  340,  343, 

348,  362,  365,  371,  518,  520, 

523,  526,  534,  556,  564,  584. 

585,  586,  590,  594,  595,  596, 

606,  608. 

2ND,     30,     134,     164,     249,     25O- 

262,   264,    325,    380,    522,    526, 

537,  560,  583,  584,  585,  586, 

590,  591,  592,  594,  595,  605, 

606,  608,  609,  610. 

3D,  47,  164,  222,  324-332,  333, 

336,  337,  344,  345,  5*5,  52o, 

526,  529,   534,  536-539- 

4TH,    47,    48,    65,    67,    68,    69, 

147,    148,    152,   159,    161-165, 

217,  267,  325,  332,  334,  340- 

348,  37i,  526,  527,  537,  597- 

5TH,    325,    339,    515,    526-536, 

537,  539,  545,  57*.  574,  575- 

583,  586,  589,  590,  598,  601- 
605,   609. 

7TH,   6lO. 

26TH,     46,     60,     268,      559-570, 

584,  599,   611. 
27TH,  106,  223-248,  613. 
28TH,   47,   48,    55-59,    65,    168, 

169,  175-185,  218,  266,  267, 
273,  276,  279,  280-287,  290, 
291,  294,  298,   310,   610. 

29TH,  340,  349,  350,  351-354, 
553,  557-562,  568,  569,  570, 
601. 

30TH,  63,  203,  223-248,  302, 
613. 

32ND,  47,  56,  64,  202,  203,  213, 
214,  266,  270-279,  293-299, 
302-306,   314,   315,  316,  324, 


INDEX  623 

327,  330,  515,  518,  519,  520,  212,   213,   267,   271,   275, 

523-526,  529,  535,  556,  572,  303,    305,   306,   556,   612, 

584,  586,  596,  608.  613. 

33D,    47,    48,    69,    70,    147-iS2.  92ND,  50,   168,   610. 

i53»  *54,  156,  158,  161,  176,  93D.   So,  614,  615. 

197,  267,  349-354,  553,  556,  Divisions: 

557,   601,  610.  Australian,  3d,  231. 

35TH,  47,    51,    59,    60,    61,    62,  5th,  231. 

65,    168,    179,    181,    184-193,  French,  15th  Colonial,  608. 

I97,  x98,  202,  267,  268,  271,  German,   1st  Guard,   196. 

273,  280.  5th    Guard,    140,    199,    205, 

36TH,  249,  260-265.  271,  273. 

37TH,   51,   62,   63,  65,   68,   161,  52nd,   271. 

J94,   *97»  2°°,  2°2,  203-213,  Doherty,    Chaplain    Francis    B., 

215,  217,  220,  267,  271,  275,  511. 

303,  333,  612,  613.  Douaumont,  Fort,  71,  355,  569. 

4IST,  64,  214.  Doyen,    Brigadier-General,    379. 

42ND,   46,    68,    302,    308,    318,  Duncan,  Major-General  George 

515,   518,   5*9-523,   524,   528,  B.,  291,  552. 

529,  55i,  584,  585,  589,  593,  Dun-sur-Meuse,    604,    605. 

607,   608. 

77TH,  47,  48,  51,  52,  54,  55,  56,  Eastern     Coast     Division      (see 

6i,  62,  65,  68,  168-175,  176,  7Qth   Division). 

179,  181,  197,  204,  291,  309-  Edwards,   Major-General   Clar- 

315,  318,  319,  323,  541,  583,  ence  R.,   540,   565. 

592,  593.  Elbe  river,  404. 

78TH,   321,    322,    540-552,   583,  Ely,  Major-General  Hanson  E., 

585,  592,  593,  607.  534,    535,    536,    596,    598,    604, 
79TH,    51,   63,    64,    65,   67,   68,  605. 

162,   194,   196,   213-222,  267,  Emont  Wood,  2io5  211. 

324,  325,  333,  556,  561,  568,  Epieds,    560. 

569,  570,  584,  589,  599,  600,  Epinal,   9,   614.  „ 

601,  611.  Epinonville,  200,  201. 

8oth,  65,  68,  69,  147,  151,  153-  Esnes,   162,   195,  214. 

162,  165,  280,  324,  329,  331,  Essen  trench,  255,  257. 

332-339,   340,   344,   345,   527,  Etain,  1,  24. 

583,   593,  608.  Etraye    Wood,     558,     559,     562, 

8ist,  611.  599. 

82ND,    191,    197,   281-293,   294,  Exermont,   168,   190,   191. 

298,   309,   313,   314,   315-319,  Exermont   ravine,   143,   190,  202, 

540,  55i,  552,  590.  267,  271,  273,  274. 
88th,  610. 

89TH,    59,    525,    556,    571-574,  Falkenhayn,   General,   8,   340. 

583,  585,  589,  594,  595,  596,  Farnsworth,        Major  -  General 

605,  609.  Charles   S.,   62. 

90TH,   536,    571-575,    582,    583,  Fays  Woods,  164,  342,  343,  344, 

586,  589,  596,  597,  598,  602,  345. 

609.  Fismes,    56,    524. 

91ST,  61,  62,  194,  196-203,  205,  Fismettes,   56. 


624 


INDEX 


Flanders,    8,   89,    589    {and   see 

Battle,   1918). 
Fleville,  266,  274,  276,  278,  279, 

281,  282,  288,  290,  297,  316. 
Foch,  Marshal  Ferdinand,  3,  7, 

15.  *7,  36,  40,  48,  72,  96,  134. 

231.   255,    256,    370,    373,    375, 

581,  587,  610. 
Fontaine-aux-Charmes      ravine, 

175- 
Forest   farm,   264. 
Forest  Wood,  343,  347,  537. 
Forges  brook,  68,  149,  150,  154, 

162. 
Forges  Wood,  69,  149,  150,  350, 

556. 
Franco-Prussian   War,   10. 
Frapelle,   battle   of,    526. 
Frederick  the  Great,  579. 
Freya    line,    143,    518,    571,    574, 

597- 
Funston,    Major-General    Fred- 
erick,   60,   421. 

General       Headquarters       (see 

Chaumont). 
Gesnes,  143,  202,  267,  275,  276, 

277,  278,  294,  302,  304. 
Gettysburg,      battle      of,      210, 

478. 
Gievres,   391,  407,   409,   410. 
Gillemont  farm,  230. 
G  o  e  t  h  a  1  s  ,       Major-General 

George   W.,    376,   381,    382. 
Gommecourt,   24. 
Gondrecourt,    307. 
Gouraud,     General,     249,     251, 

615. 
Gouy,   235,   238,   240. 
Grand    Carre    farm,    518,    528, 

534- 
Grande    Montagne    Wood,    352, 

553,  558,  559,  568,  599,  611. 
Grandpre,    293,    300,    309,    310, 

3H,    315,    320,    321,    322,    518, 

540,    54i.    542,    543.    544.    546, 

549,   55o. 
Grant,   General   Ulysses  S.,   84, 

349,   367,   371,  4°3- 


Haan,  Major-General  William 
G.,  270. 

Haig,  Field  Marshal  Sir  Doug- 
las,  47,   223,   249. 

Halles,   598. 

Harbord,  Major-General  James 
G->    254,    376-390,    391,    394- 

399,  412,  457- 
Haucourt,  215. 

Hill    180    (near    Cornay),    281, 

282,  283,  287,  294. 
Hill  180  (near  Grandpre),  544, 

546,   548. 
Hill     182     (near     Saint-Juvin), 

3i8,   551. 
Hill  204  (near  Grandpre),  544, 

546. 
Hill    212    (near  Villers-devant- 

Dun),   598. 
Hill      223      (near     Chatel-Che- 

hery),  282,  283,  287,  289,  294. 
Hill  227    (near  Brieulles),   160. 
Hill  239   (near  Gesnes),  275. 
Hill     240     (the     Montrefagne), 

271,  274. 
Hill     242      (Romagne     Wood), 

521. 
Hill     244      (near      Chatel-Che- 

hery),   284,   285. 
Hill   250    (near  Ogons   Wood), 

326,  327,  328,  329. 
Hill  253    (near  Romagne),  330. 
Hill    255     (near    Gesnes),    277, 

.303,    305. 
Hill  256   (near  Ivoiry),  208. 
Hill  260   (near  Romagne),   531, 

534- 
Hill    263     (Little    Wood),    299, 

300,  302. 
Hill  268   (near  Nantillois),  220. 
Hill   269    (Money   Wood),   294, 

295,  296,  297,  299,  302. 
Hill  271   (near  Cunel),  531,  534. 
Hill    272     (Little    Wood),    299, 

300,  301,  302. 
Hill  274  (near  Nantillois),  221. 
Hill  281    (near  Brieulles),   160. 
Hill  288    (Dame  Marie  ridge), 

305,   521,    524- 


INDEX 


625 


Hill    294     (near    Montfaucon), 

218. 
Hill  295    (near   Cuisy),   164. 
Hill  297   (near  Pultiere  Wood), 

538- 
Hill  299   (near  Pultiere  Wood), 

347,    537,    538. 
Hill   360   (Ormont  Wood),   558, 

563,   564,   566,   568. 

Hill  370  (Grande  Montagne 
Wood),    553. 

Hill  378  (Borne  de  Cornouil- 
ler),  71,  73,  157,  158,  ^5, 
166,  213,  340,  341,  345,  349, 
351,  352,  353,  354,  53*,  53$, 
553,  556,  558,  584,  589,  599, 
600,    601,   611. 

Hindenburg,  Field-Marshal, 

227,  469. 

Hindenburg  line,  4,  14,  134, 
223,  227,  228,  229,  232,  239, 
240,  241,  243,  249. 

Hines,  Major-General  John  L., 
6i,  67,  162,  340,  342,  355,  371- 
373,  583,  587,  597,  604. 

Illinois  Division  (see  33rd 
Division). 

Inor,    609. 

Iron  Division  (see  28th  Divi- 
sion). 

Is-sur-Tille,    391,   409,   410. 

Italian   offensive,   1918,   3. 

Ivoiry,  208,   209. 

Jackson,   Andrew,  232. 
Jackson,  Stonewall,  17,  232,  332, 

367- 

Jewish  Welfare  Board,  506, 
507. 

Johnston,  Major-General  Will- 
iam H.,  61. 

Joinville,   270. 

Joncourt,    241. 

Jura  Mountains,  614. 

Jure   Wood,   69,   149,   151,   153. 

Juvigny,  battle  of,  47,  270,  524, 
525- 


Kemmel  Hill,  3,  324. 

Keystone  Division  (see  28th 
Division). 

Kitchener,   Earl,   584. 

Knights  of  Columbus,   506,   507. 

Knoll,  230. 

Kriemhilde  line,  143,  165,  272, 
299,  3°3,  3°5,  306,  309,  3*4, 
315,  316,  318,  326,  333,  344, 
399,  5i8,  520,  521,  522,  523, 
525.  540,  550,  55*.  574,  584, 
589,  590. 

Kuhn,  Major-General  Joseph 
E-,  63,  599. 

La  Boiselle,  24. 

Lai  Fuon  ravine,  196,  199,  204, 
205. 

Langres,   printing   plant,   31. 

Langres,  schools,  24,  433,  442- 
446. 

Laon,   516. 

La  Pallice,  402. 

La  Rochelle,  402. 

La    Viergette,    286. 

Leavenworth  schools,  42,  122, 
182,  422,  423,  433,  436,  437, 
438,  439,  440,  44i,  442,  444, 
445,  450,  451,  452,  453,  454, 
457,  461,  4^2,  464- 

Le    Cateau,   223,   244,   246,   247. 

Le  Catelet,  235,  238,  241. 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  232,  349,  367, 
478. 

Lejeune,  Major-General  John 
A.,  254,   594,  605. 

Lens,  294. 

Lewis,  Major-General  Edward 
M.,  223. 

Liberty  Division  (see  77th  Divi- 
sion). 

Liggett,  Lieutenant-General 
Hunter,   30,   65,    355,   358-362, 

5i5,  5*6. 
Lightning     Division     (see     78th 

Division). 
Lille,  244,  322,   516. 
Lille-Metz    railway,    1,    11,    13, 

124,  134,  141,  175,  215,  583. 


6i6 


INDEX 


Limey,  541. 

Liny,    575- 

Little    Wood,    296,    299,    300. 

Loges  farm,  545,  549. 

Loges  Wood,  540,  542,  543,  545. 

546,    547,    548,    549,    550,    551, 

552,  557,  583,  585- 
Loos    (see  Battle,  /p/5). 
Lorraine,    1,    9,    10,   47,    52,   360, 

378,  526. 
Ludendorff,    General,    4,    7,    8, 

9,      14,      17.      J9,      "°,     227, 

230. 

MacDonald,    Brigadier-General 

John  B.,  203. 
Macedonia   campaign,    1918,   3. 
Machault,  252,  264. 
Macquincourt    valley,    236,    239. 
Maistre,    General,    340,    587. 
Malancourt,  124,  162,  215. 
Malancourt  Wood,   195. 
Malbrouck   Hill,   352. 
Maldah    ridge,    300,    302. 
Malmaison,    Fort,    134. 
Mamelle   trench,    304,   324,    326, 

329,    330,    331,    336,    539. 
Mangin,   General,  47,   134,  270, 

367- 
March,  General  Peyton  C,  390, 

399- 

Marcq,    292. 

Marengo,  battle  of,  388. 

Marne  Division  (see  3rd  Divi- 
sion). 

Marne  river,  55,  325,  326,  331, 
538  (and  see  Battle,  191 4, 
iqi8) . 

Marseilles,  397. 

Mars-la-Tour,   1,  24. 

Martinvaux   Wood,   346. 

McClellan,  General,  359. 

McDowell,  General,  359. 

M  c  M  a  h  o  n,  Major-General 
John  E.,   526. 

McRae,  Major-General  James 
H.,   541. 

Meade,  General,  478. 

Medeah  farm,  259,  260,  262. 


Menoher,  Major-General 
Charles  T.,  519. 

Metz,  1,  4,  9,  22,  196. 

Meuse  canal,  341,  601,  602,  603. 

Meuse   line,  4,   7,  243,   577. 

Meuse  river,  8,  10,  11,  12,  14, 
17,  22,  35,  36,  49,  65,  67,  68, 
69,  70,  71,  72,  73,  80,  124,  142, 
143,  144,  147,  H8,  152,  153, 
154,  157,  162,  163,  165,  176, 
213,  222,  249,  267,  268,  295, 
322,  324,  332,  333,  341,  343, 
345,  347,  348,  349,  35°,  35*. 
352,  354,  362,  365,  371,  399, 
527,  530,  535,  536,  537,  540, 
552,  553,  556,  563,  564,  574» 
575,  583,  586,  589,  592,  595, 
597,  598,  600,  601,  602,  603, 
604,    605,    607,    610,    611. 

Mexican  border  service,  48,  122, 

235- 
Mezieres,  13,  565. 
Mezy,  538. 

Moirey  Wood,   566,  568. 
Molleville  farm,   352,   553,   557, 

559,  584,  599- 

Moltke,   Field  Marshal,  469. 

Money   Wood,   294,   296,   299. 

Mons,  248. 

Montblainville,    177,   178. 

Montfaucon,  64,  65,  66,  68,  109, 
124,  125,  127,  129,  134,  140, 
141,  143,  155,  160,  162,  164, 
185,  194,  195,  200,  201,  206, 
207,    208,   209,    214,   215,   216, 

217,     2l8,     220,     221,     267,     268, 
325,    569,    600. 

Montfaucon     woods,     126,     161, 

204,  215,  217,   3P3,  333. 
Montrebeau     Wood,     188,     191, 

195,   271,   273. 
Montrefagne    {see  Hill  246). 
Mont  Sec,   560. 
Morine    Wood,    202,    276,    277, 

294. 
Mort   Homme,    70,   71,   72,    124, 

148,    149,    152,   350. 
Morton,  Major-General  Charles 

G,  351- 


INDEX 


627 


Mosby,  Colonel,  338. 
Moselle    river,    578,    589. 
Moussin  brook,   329,   330. 
Muir,    Major-General    Charles 
H.,  57- 

Nancy,   505. 

Nantillois,    194,    210,    219,    220, 

221,  328. 
Napoleon,    228,    366,    388,    447, 

469,  478. 
Nauroy,  235,  241. 
Naza   Wood,   310,   314. 
Neufehateau,   359,   362. 
Nivelle,   General,   355,   356. 

Ogons  Wood,  221,  222,  267,  324, 
333,  334,  335,  336,  337,  344. 

Ohio  Division  {see  37th  Divi- 
sion). 

Old  Hickory  Division  {see  30th 
Division). 

Orion  Division  {see  27th  Divi- 
sion) . 

Orleans,   409. 

Ormont  Wood,  540,  558,  559,  563, 
564,   568,  584. 

O'Ryan,  Major-General  John 
F.,  223. 

Ostend,  612. 

Ourcq   river,    68,    270,    519,   525. 

Pacific  Coast  Division   {see  gist 

Division). 
Palestine  campaign,  1918,  3. 
Paris,  11,  47,  373,  392,  448,  475, 

476,   509,   515,   576. 

Parker,  Brigadier  -  General 
Frank,   585. 

Passchendaele  (sse  Battle,  1917) . 

Peking,   march  to,   365. 

Perrieres   Hill,   176,   178. 

Pershing,  General  John  J.,  3, 
14,  16,  39,  60,  61,  79,  296,  355, 
356,  357,  361,  362,  363  364, 
366,  367,  370,  371,  373,  374, 
375,  376,  377,  378,  379,  380, 
381,  389,  394,  395,  412,  421, 
434,   435,   436,   446,   454,   462, 


465,   467,   468,   498,    six,    515, 

516,   517,   587,   607. 
Petain,  Marshal,  14,  355,   367. 
Petit  Wood    {see  Little   Wood). 
Peut  de  Faux  Wood,  331,   344, 

346. 
Philippine  rebellion,  437. 
Piave    river,    3 
Picardy,    359,    383. 
Plat-Chene   ravine,   353. 
Plunkett,  Rear-Admiral,  581. 
Port  Arthur,   553. 
Potomac  river,  349. 
Premont,   246. 
Pultiere    Wood,    330,    338,    515, 

527,    530,    53i,   532,    534,    537* 
540. 
Pyrenees  Mountains,  614. 

Quennemont  farm,  230. 

Rainbow     Division     {see     42nd 

Division) . 
Rappes    Wood,    338,    515,    529, 

530,    531,    532,    533,    534,    535, 

536,    537,    538,    540,    546,    574- 
Read,     Major-General     George 

W.,   223. 
Red   Cross,  American,  407,   501, 

503,    507,    508. 
Reine  Wood,  558. 
Rheims,  134,  249,  250,  251,  257, 

262. 
Rhine  river,  2,  17,  349,  578,  583, 

615,    617. 
Riviera,   601. 
Romagne,    304,    305,    306,    348, 

515,  518,  523,  524,  530,  531. 
Romagne   Wood,  299,   300,    306, 

5i9,   521. 
Roosevelt,    President    Theodore, 

376,  420. 
Root,  Elihu,  Secretary  of  War, 

422. 
Rossignol   Wood,   185. 
Roulers,  612. 
Russo-Japanese  War,  63,  422. 

Saint-Dizier,   410. 


628 


INDEX 


Saint-Etienne-a-Arnes,  259,  260, 

262. 
Saint-Gobain,  248. 
Saint-Juvin,   309,   315,   316,   317, 

318,    319,    320,    322,    543,    550, 

552. 
Saint-Mihiel,  1,  9,  10,  13,  25,  26, 

80,    144,    262,    325,    357,    360, 

403,   410,    556,    572,    573,    583, 

610,     615      (and     see     Battle, 

1918). 
Saint-Nazaire,     307,     397,     402, 

404. 
Saint-Quentin,      134,     223,     244 

(and  see  Battle,  1918). 
Saint-Quentin    canal,    223,    228, 

236,    237. 
Salvation      Army,      501,       502, 

507. 
Samogneux,  349,   555- 
Sassey,   163. 
Scheldt  river,  612. 
Sedan,    10,    13,    542,    565,    589, 

607,   608. 
Seicheprey,    battle    of,    60,    560. 
Selle  river,  246,  247. 
Seminary  Ridge,   291. 
Services     of     Supply      (S.O.S.), 

28,  93,  376,  378,  381-412,  435. 

437.    454.    459.    473,    481,   490, 

505,   614,   617. 
Shiloh,  battle  of,  83. 
Sims,  Vice-Admiral  William  S., 

376. 
Sivry,   352,  353. 
Smith,   Major-General   William 

R.,  260. 
Soissons,  3,  13,  15,  47,  196,  268, 

270    (and   see   Battle,    1918 — 

"  counter-offensive  "). 
Somme  valley,  3,  223,  225,  227, 

247,  248,  617   (and  see  Battle, 

igi6,  iqi8). 
Somme-Py,  250,  251. 
Somme-Py  Wood,   254. 
Sommerance,  307,  590. 
Souilly,   31,   355,   374,    391,   392. 

5*5- 
South  Africa   (Boer  War),  88. 


Southwestern  Division  (see  36th 

Division). 
Spanish  War,  88,  422,  437,  481. 
Stars    and    Stripes,    newspaper, 

463,  483- 
Stenay,   609. 
Steuben,  417. 
Stones,   ravine  of,   318. 
Stuart,    Jeb,    337. 
Summerall,  Major  -  General 

Charles  P.,  61,  269,  278,  298, 

300,    355,    365-371,    372,    520, 

521,   583,  587,   594. 

Taille  I'Abbe  (wood),  168,  178, 

181,   281,    282,   285,   286,    287, 

291,  310,  314. 
Talma  Hill,  544,  546. 
Thayer,  Sylvanus,  417. 
Toul,    9,    280,     363,     378,     541, 

560. 
Tours,   378,    391,    392,   393,   394, 

395.  396,  406,  450. 
Traub,      Major-General      Peter 

E.,    60. 
Trones  Wood,  570. 
Tuilerie  farm,  305. 

Valenciennes,  223,  245   (and  see 

Battle,   IQ18). 
Valoup  Wood,  303,  304. 
Varennes,    176,    177,     184,    185, 

186,   187,  282,  293. 
Vauquois,   60,   61,   66,    185,    198. 
Vaux,  257. 
Vaux,  Fort,  355,  569. 
Vauxcastille,  257. 
Vaux    de    Mille    Mais    ravine, 

553,    599- 
Verdun,  8,  9,  10,  27,  40,  71,  75, 

351,  355.  374.  449,  553,  554. 
569,  577,  586,  599,  601,  617 
(and  see  Battle,   1916) . 

Very,    187. 

Very  Wood,   195,   199. 

Vesle  river,   15,  52,   56,   57,  68, 

.325- 
Vigneulles,  561. 
Ville-aux-Bois  farm,  337,  345. 


INDEX 


629 


Villers-devant-Dun,  598. 
Vipere   Wood,   252,  253. 
Volker  line,  207. 
Voormezeele,   224. 
Vosges   Mountains,   9,    526,   615. 

Wadelincourt,    607. 

War   College,  422. 

Warsaw,   14. 

Waterloo,  battle  of,  417,  478. 

Wavrille    Wood,    568. 

Wellington,  417,  478. 

West  Point,  376,  388,  413.  4*4, 
416-417,  418,  419,  420,  422, 
423,   426,   430,   431,   432,   442, 

445.  454.  463- 
Wilderness  campaign,   84. 


Wilson,     President     Woodrow, 

515,   577- 

Woevre,  plain  of,  4,  9,  71, 
554,   562,   611. 

Wood,  Major-General  Leonard, 
59,   61,  421,   571. 

Wright,  Major-General  Will- 
iam M.,  59,  572,   594,   596. 

Yankee  Division  (see  26th  Divi- 
sion). 

Y.  M.  C.  A.,  407,  408,  489,  501, 
502-506,    507. 

Ypres,  20,  244,  251,  449,  485, 
495.  577.  586,  612,  617  (and 
see  Battle,  1914,  and  Battle, 
igi8 — Flanders) . 


:b 


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